CASH CREEK CLUB – Live

Ft. Larry Stewart, Mark Wills, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, RT Johnson, and more!

Wednesday August 4, 2021

@ The Nashville Palace in Nashville, TN

(Review by: Jeffrey Kurtis)

The Cash Creek Band – comprised of some of Nashville’s most sought-after session players and touring band members: Kimo Forrest, Monty DeVita, and Jim Blaylock - are no strangers to hosting great events in (and around) Music City that bring together young talent with the legends of country music on one stage.

They host the CCB Barn Dance shows in Pleasant View, TN, have recorded over 50 episodes of their Cash Creek Club web series/podcast, and they bless country music lovers with a monthly live show titled Cash Creek Club -Live!, which plays out like an extension of their podcast and is streamed on The Nashville Country Television Network.

In the past, the stage for the Cash Creek Club – Live! has been graced by Jamie O’Neal, Tim Rushlow, Richie McDonald, Heath Wright of Ricochet, and many more, including the featured artists from their own CCB Nashville record label.

For its highly anticipated return after a couple months absence, the live show moved to the legendary Nashville Palace and brought with it an outstanding lineup that featured 11 different artists including Cash Creek, Larry Stewart of Restless Heart, Mark Wills, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, Megan Mullins, RT Johnson, and more!

Cash Creek kicked off the evenings festivities with a set that featured “Night Like This” and “All Wrapped Up,” before assuming their role as the incredible backing band for all the artists they welcomed to the stage: Tim Pardee, The Rollers, Rusty Van Sickle, and Megan Mullins, the latter who played a quick, but powerful set which showed off her incredible vocals and fiddle skills, and also included the fan-favorite “All-American Family Band.”

RT Johnson, a CCB Nashville recording artist who is currently climbing the MusicRow BreakOut Chart, pulled the crowd into his set with his incredibly strong vocals and a showcase of his 90’s inspired, modern tilted country with “Man I Made,” “Feel Good Again,” and “Thirsty Weather.” But it was when he played “Best Definition of a Man,” a slower paced song that he just recently wrote for his yet to be born son, that the otherwise rowdy crowd silenced and gave him a tremendous ovation as its final notes were played.

As is par for the course with any CCB Live!, the headliner – or in the case with this show – the three headliner’s always close out the night; And first up was Carolyn Dawn Johnson.

“This is a dancing song” she stated as she counted in the band and kicked into the opening lick of “Simple Life,” and as if it were done on cue, a couple immediately sprang up from their seats and hit the dancefloor. 

“Oh wow! It always makes me so incredibly happy when I see people out there dancing,” she stated, before laughing as she said, “because no, I’m not a very good dancer…at all!”

“This next one I’m gonna play tonight was the first song where I got to hear myself singing on the radio. I had heard songs that I had written being done by other people on the radio before this one, but this was the first time it was me singing,” Johnson excitedly shared before playing her first-ever radio single “Georgia.”

What I’ve personally always loved about living in Nashville is that it is a songwriter’s town, which means that when you’re at a show, you’ll often get to hear a story about a hit song that you may never have otherwise heard. Johnson told one of those just before playing “Single White Female.”

“Years ago, I had the very good fortune of having one of my songs get recorded. We had heard that it had been put on hold and that it might be the single. So, all day long that day, my publisher had been making phone call after phone call to try and find out and get an answer about it, but no one was calling us back. Well, that night I was out to dinner with a friend, and after we finished eating and left the restaurant, I heard a familiar riff playing from somewhere across the parking lot. I was like, that’s my song…someone is listening to my demo. I finally traced where it was coming from, and I ran across this parking lot to a car where Chely Wright was sitting and listening to my song/my demo. I must’ve looked like a crazy person to her because her doors locked fast. But once she realized who I was, she rolled down her window and I told her, hey that’s my song. She said, yeah, I know it is…I just cut it and I think it’s going to be my first #1. Well, she spoke that into existence!” It was her first number one, and it was mine too!”

With the crowd solely invested into her set by this point, Johnson finished it off with her two signature hits “Complicated” and “I Don’t Want You To Go,” and left the crowd wanting more as they cheered her off the stage.

FULL SETLIST (Carolyn Dawn Johnson)

1. Simple Life

2. Georgia

3. Single White Female

4. Complicated

4. I Don’t Want You To Go

With the Cash Creek Band already being on stage, they offered their current radio single “Hard Time,” which is exactly how they introduced the next headliner, Larry Stewart of Restless Heart. The song is originally an album cut from Restless Heart’s 1986 album Wheels, and the Cash Creek Band’s fresh version of it features Larry Stewart singing the second verse – a role in which he reprised to kick off his portion of the show.

With just a simple thank you to the audience, Stewart instantly showed off his outstanding voice as he dove into “The Bluest Eyes In Texas” and “Why Does It Have To Be (Wrong or Right)” - two of Restless Heart’s #1 songs. 

“Do y’all remember that song “Please Come To Boston?” Stewart asked as he sung an a cappella chorus from it. “Man, I can remember where I was when I first heard that song. It was one of my favorites then, and it’s still one of my favorites today. Well fast-forward to when I moved here to Nashville, went to Belmont, and Dave Loggins (who wrote that song) was there. Well long-story short, he ended up pitching Restless Heart a song and it’s one of my two favorite songs that we ever recorded,” he finished as he closed his set with “Fast Movin’ Train.”

FULL SETLIST (Larry Stewart)

1. Hard Time w/ Cash Creek Band

2. The Bluest Eyes In Texas

3. Why Does It Have To Be (Wrong or Right)

4.Fast Movin’ Train

“Do we have any country music fans in here tonight?” the final headliner of the night Mark Wills asked as he was met with a round of enthusiastic cheers from the audience. “Particularly, do we have any 90’s country music fans in here tonight?” he asked more specifically earning a roof shaking ovation from the crowd as he dove into his set with “Jacob’s Ladder” and “Places I’ve Never Been.”

“This song I’m going to play is one of my favorite old country songs. I guess it was back in 1996 or so, when I first played the Grand Ole Opry; one of the nicest guys I met there was a guy be the name of Jack Greene. Y’all remember Jack?” Wills asked as the crowd clapped and cheered.

“We would always visit with each other anytime that we were on the show together. But as time went on, many of you might know that he developed Alzheimer’s and dementia, but when it came his time to sing on the show, they’d hand him a guitar and he would walk right out there and nail it – singing was always something that he remembered how to do. Every opportunity that I have to sing this next song with a band, I always take it and pay tribute to ol’ Jack Greene,” Wills finished as he showcased the amazing depth of his vocals while belting out “Statue of a Fool.”

“Now…if you don’t like that kind of country stuff,” Wills said as the final notes of the song finished playing, “then get out!”

He rounded out his portion of the show with “She’s in Love” - a song in which he said he doesn’t get to play too often; And closed things out with his career defining hit “19 Something,” which had everyone standing up and clapping along as they shouted back the lyrics of the second most played song of the decade at country radio.

FULL SETLIST (Mark Wills)

1. Jacob’s Ladder

2. Places I’ve Never Been

3. Statue of a Fool

4. She’s in Love

5. 19 Something

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