CALLIE MCCULLOUGH

Pindrop Songwriter Series

Sunday March 6, 2023

@ The Clubhouse at Sonny’s in Nashville

(Review by: Jeffrey Kurtis)

Tucked inside the quaintness of The Clubhouse at Sonny’s in Nashville’s Germantown, the Pindrop Songwriter Series occupies their Sunday night home, transforming the living room atmosphere into a listening room type of aura where songwriters and their craft can truly be experienced by the audience.

With five uniquely Nashville songwriter rounds on the bill for the evening, the packed house was treated to a healthy array of several different styles from some of the top emerging talent in the vast songwriter community with spotlighting performances from Virginia Louise, Lauren Anderson, and Callie McCullough.

McCullough, the Canadian born songbird who calls Nashville home, holds tightly to her traditional country and bluegrass roots, presenting an overall feel that walks left of the current mainstream pop country dial while enticing the listener through lyrical masterpieces that highlight her incredible vocals and ability to move her voice through the emotional tilts of each song to strike the right heart chords.

Part of an incredible round of music that featured the piano pop flare of Andy Howard, the powerfully blues driven Lauren Anderson, and the soulful singer-storyteller style of Megan Hickman, McCullough would be the second songwriter to play during each pass through.

“Thank you for hanging out with us tonight,” Callie said with a smile as she fine-tuned her guitar. “I’m working on a brand-new record, so I’m gonna play some songs from it,” she told as she opened with “Out of the Blue,” quieting the room with an irresistible hush in her whispery voice as she brought us though a softness that surrounded lyrics which saw her revisiting the specific place she used to draw inspiration from while confusingly searching for it again in the current day to help fill her need of wanting something more, but being unsure of what it is.

“This is the first song I’m releasing from the new record,” plugged McCullough. “So, 2020… 2020 blew up my life. I had my album come out, but then the tour got cancelled, and so I went home to sit on my family farm and get stoned. I broke up a 7-year relationship and thought, so what do I do now as an unemployed musician? That’s when my mom asked, “Have you ever thought about freezing your eggs?” Well, that’s when I rolled a big one and wrote this song,” she finished with a sarcastic chuckle as she played “What If I Don’t?”

The snappy, toe-tapping sing along had the crowd bopping shoulders along in rhythm with the up-tempo vibe as she metaphorically shrugged her shoulders, transparently asking, what if I don’t want to get married, what If I don’t want to have babies, and what if I don’t care about money?

“You guys are such an awesome audience,” gushed Callie as she retuned her guitar. “This last one is the title track from my first record, and it came together through a series of coincidences; a snowstorm, red wine, and watching Midnight in Paris,” she explained as she left a lasting mark on the crowd by infusing an angelic tone into “After Midnight,” bringing the crowd to a deafening silence as they leaned in for a closer listen and hung on every word of the lullaby kissed melody.

While Nashville is loaded with songwriters who are all trying to find their place within the vast music scene, what makes McCullough so vividly stand out is her extreme confidence to walk her own line, uniquely knowing exactly who she is and letting the industry catch up to her rather than changing into something she isn't to chase after it.

And with an already very highly acclaimed album on her resume, the two new songs she offered as samples of what’s coming this summer, intriguingly set a swirl of substantial buzz around her as we inch closer and closer to its release date.

FULL SET LIST

1) Out of the Blue

2) What If I Don’t

3) After Midnight

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