ERIN KINSEY

With Sarah Lake and Jillian Steele

Tuesday May 4, 2021

@ The Listening Room Café in Nashville, TN

TCM Single Review: "Drunk Too" 

www.erinkinsey.com 

As the lights inside The Listening Room Café dimmed, the pre-show introduction video splashed across the screens hanging on both sides of the stage. The commentary of that video showcased what a true listening room is all about, and how rooms like the one that we were sitting in is where the true heart and soul of Nashville comes to life through the songwriting and the music.

During the 3-songwriter round that we were in attendance for, Rockwall, Texas native Erin Kinsey was our sole focus, though both Sarah Lake and Jillian Steele also did an amazing job with their portions of the one hour and a fifteen-minute round.

Lake’s song list included: “Missing Home, “Flower,” “Mercy Of The Wind,” “Amen,” and more.

Steele’s song list included: “If We Had A Daughter,” “Home With Me,” and “Not Loved By You,” amongst others.

Erin Kinsey kicked the entire round off with an upbeat performance of her song “Hurry,” and although this was an acoustic gig, there is a break that comes in the songs final chorus that perfectly lends itself to a clap-a-long/audience participation moment that will make for a very exciting moment during a full-band show.

“This is one of my first shows in a while, so I literally invited everyone that I know, and I see so many familiar faces tonight,” Kinsey began, before playing her song “People Are People.” The song, a co-write with Janelle Arthur and Victoria Shaw, carries a very poignant lyric for where the world is at today as it sings about how we are all equals with one another regardless of social status, race, etc.

Before playing “All I Know,” Kinsey transparently explained, “I wrote this next song with Filmore (Curb Records recording artist) when I was going through my Sam Hunt phase,” before confessing, “I wanted to be the girl Sam Hunt.”

In all my years of living in Nashville and seeing songwriter rounds, one aspect of them that I’ve always personally loved is that you often get to hear the story behind why a song was written. That was the case before Kinsey played her song “PINK.”

She talked very openly about how when she was headed into the songwriting session that day, she received a phone call from her manager who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer (she has since beaten it). But, she also spoke of how going into the session, she couldn’t just let something like that go. That’s how the song idea for “PINK” was originally born. Since then, the song has become affiliated with Susan G. Koman and has taken on incredible life of its own having been performed by a group of legends: Dolly Parton, Sara Evans, Jordin Sparks, Monica, and Rita Wilson.

Though there was a proud excitement in her voice when she introduced her first official single, “Drunk  Too,” Kinsey allowed the song to do most of the speaking for her – and it certainly did! The Listening Room Café is always quiet when performers and playing their songs, but when she dug into these heartstring tugging lyrics you could’ve heard a pin drop as a hush came over the crowd before they erupted with ovation when she played the final notes of it. 

Although the trio of singer-songwriters closed out their parts of the set, the soundman alerted them that they had the time to go another round if they had another song in them.

Kinsey closed out her portion of the show with “If It Wasn’t For Her,” a song she described to those who were there from within the music industry as “one of those songs where there’s that twist…that when you think it’s going one way, it jerks you another.”

The truly beautiful part about this unplanned performance came when Kinsey forgot the words - admittedly from not having played the song in so long - but in professional fashion the moment didn’t slow her down any. Instead, it allowed the audience the opportunity to be reeled in by her amazing personality as she told the story of the lyrics, so we’d all get the overall gist of the aforementioned twist she had mentioned, before jumping right back into the chorus as if this whole thing was planned.

Nashville is a town full of young talent and songwriters who are chasing their dreams. You can find a songwriter round in most every corner of town day in and day out. However, when you get the opportunity to see someone like Erin Kinsey, you quickly realize that there are those who are chasing their dreams, and then there are others who have clearly arrived!

Erin Kinsey has arrived!

FULL SET LIST

1) Hurry

2) People Are People

3) All I Know

4) PINK

5) Drunk Too

6) If It Wasn’t For Her

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