HOPE ON THE ROW

Ft. Tigirlily, Elise Harper, Kinsey Rose, Kasey Tyndall, Bri Fletcher, and more!

Tuesday April 12, 2022

@ 6th & Peabody in Nashville, TN

(Review by: Jeffrey Kurtis)

Diamond Dixie (read full review of them here) performing during the 5 o’clock hour with a rocking full band did the trick to revving up the early goers in the crowd ahead of all the amazing songwriter rounds that would follow as the complex at 6th and Peabody begin to fill up as Keith Griner’s Spreading Hope hosted the “Women of Country Edition” of their live music series that they do in conjunction with “Hope on the Row,” an organization dedicated to raising money and awareness for Nashville’s unhoused community.

Read more about Hope on The Row: https://www.hopeontherow.org/

As the subtitle of the show suggested, each of the 4 songwriter rounds featured some of the best female talent that Nashville has to offer right now, and as par for the course with a night full of solid music and songwriting, there were many different highlights that came out of each round.

ROUND 1 OF 4

Tigirlily instantly showed off their sister harmonies and allowed their personalities to shine through “My Thang” and “Shoot Tequila,” both which pulled the audience into their catchy melodies and had everyone bopping along, before they closed their portion of the round with the heart-tugging “Somebody Does,” a strong, power ballad which they dedicated to anyone who needed to feel loved and worthy.

Kaylee Rose meanwhile, gave us a little bit of all sides of the spectrum as to who she is as an artist and songwriter, first by delivering the ultra-catchy toe-tapper “Howdy!,” but then by doing a complete 180 to perform “Love Makes You Blind,” a softer paced song from the normally up-tempo songwriter, but one which earned her praise on social media resulting in making a music video that literally premiered two hours before the show.

Elise Harper was the sleeper hit of the opening round. With an energy that saw her standing up and popping her hips side to side while showing off amazing vocal chops on “Good in Bed,” she immediately captured the crowd’s attention; something she also did later when she closed her set with “Mistress.” But it was her emotionally driven “Break Up Better” that elevated the entire round to new heights as the show-stopping lyrics challenged to look in the mirror in the aftermath of a breakup and admit where you’re coming up short with moving on and how you’re only hurting yourself because of it.

Carly Rogers is a songwriter of very few words who mostly let her music do the talking for her, whether it was on a brand-new song that was just written a mere hour or so before the show with “I’ve Got Stories,” or when she paid homage to one of her favorite country singers of all time on the 90’s country styled, “Kershaw.”

ROUND 2 OF 4

The second round was spotlighted by Morgan Myles and Kinsey Rose, however, Jennifer Smestad and Emily Brooke elevated their game and truly helped to complete the overall feel of the entire round.

Jennifer Smestad opened with a catchy new song “WWJD” and followed it with “18,” which she announced as quite possibly being her next single. But it was the song that earned her a publishing and record deal that stamped her mark on the round when she closed her set with “Half the Man,” a song written about her dad (who happened to be in the crowd) that she admitted, she didn’t know that anyone else would even like, let alone the impact it would make.

Emily Brooke meanwhile gave us a well-rounded feel of who she is as a songwriter over just three songs. She leaned on what she described as cutesy vibe on “Buzzing Like You,” delivered her next single “I Guess I Do,” and allowed her sassier side to filter into the edgy feel of “Whiskey Side of Me.”

There’s not a whole lot that Morgan Myles hasn’t accomplished in the music business at this point in her career, but her strongest attribute may just be that she knows her sound, she knows her style, and she isn’t afraid to deviate within it to create something powerful. She immediately showcased that on “Sanctuary” by allowing her bluesy driven side to be the instant highlight. She also elevated that blues sound when she smashed it against a jazzier fusion on “Real Talk” to close her set, while also giving us a strong country ballad with “Not Just Lonely,” a song she revealed had been cut by Ty Herndon.  

Kinsey Rose, who many in the crowd recognized from her stint on last season of The Voice, performed three very brand-new songs including her opener “Speed of a Broken Heart,” a song she said she wrote about a 7-year relationship she experienced that didn’t end so good. “Precious Time,” which she is batting around the idea of being her next single, was followed by “The Bubba Song,” her touching tribute to one of her neighbors in Nashville from when she first moved here who had become like a father to her, but sadly passed away recently.

ROUND 3 OF 4

As the evening reached its halfway point, fans of the Australian sibling group Dozzi showed up clad in the trio’s t-shirts, and they didn’t go unnoticed by the group who exclaimed, “we see some sexy people out there in Dozzi t-shirts.” Performance wise, they introduced the crowd to a song they said was releasing soon with “Good Fight,” and then impressed with stellar harmonies on the groove heavy “Messy.”

Jenna LaMaster gave us insight into who she is and how she was raised when she talked about being part of a big rodeo family and around cowboys all the time before playing “How You Make a Cowboy Cry.” However, the highlight of her set came when she played “Your Mama Still Does,” a song she wrote after receiving a text from the mother of her ex-boyfriend that ended up being cut by Ashland Craft for her debut album Travellin’ Kind.

Kasey Tyndall has really been making an impact over the past year, which has earned her high praise and buzzworthy status. While she used her 3-songs to crank up her sass on “Nothin’ Wrong with Being Country” and then took us to her hometown way of thinking on “Babies,” it was the powerful performance of her recent single “Middle Man” that brought a hush over the crowd as they leaned in to get a better listen to the tug at your heart lyric.

Faren Rachels was the final songwriter to perform during this round, and like Carly Rogers earlier in the night, she really allowed her music and songwriting to do the talking for her as she played a set that included “Good Tequila,” and memorable closer, “Pregnant on Purpose,” a song co-written with JoyBeth Taylor and Ashley Dalton about a pregnancy scare. 

ROUND 4 OF 4

While Morgan Johnston and Kelsey Lamb stuck pretty much to their newer material, with the exception of Lamb performing “Girl At the Bar,” Bri Fletcher and Alee gave us a full taste of who they are through their songs.

Bri Fletcher first allowed “Love Me Back” to act as a tremendous showcase of her incredible, emotion packed vocals as she pulled us through a heart-wrenching lyric about walking away from a good relationship due to your own past wounds and walls you’ve built, before delivering her current single “Astronaut” and the opposites attract bent lyric of “Everything I’m Not,” the latter which Fletcher recently celebrated as her first song  to ever pass a million streams.

Alle showed us a full scope of who she is as a songwriter by bookending her performance perfectly with her song choices. Whereas her opening song “Don’t Make Miss You” was the one that she said really got everything started for her, her closing song “Guys Like You” is her most current single and brought us right up to where she is in the here and now.

Nights like these are the exact thing that I love about being in a town with so much talent. From round to round, each performance was solid, they nailed the emotion of the lyrics perfectly, and each performer left memorable melodies stuck in your head all while raising the bar for the person sitting right next to them to have to reach up and grab.

Couple the amazing songs and performances with the fact that Tennessee isn’t called “The Volunteer State” for nothing, and you get night of remarkable music coming together with an admirable cause that we were blessed to be a part of.

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