I finally got to hear the current incarnation of "Ten Out Of Tenn" perform a show in Nashville. The… what exactly do you call this assemblage? A collective? A temporary tour? A "band of the moment"? I dunno what exactly to call it. I haven't had enough coffee. Words fail. Whatever it's called, the current tour ended Wednesday night with a show at the Cannery Ballroom that was part of the kick-off of this year's "Next Big Nashville" music-fest and conference.
Suffice it to say it's a terrific two hours of music, a very diversified cross section of genres, styles and performers in an unpredictable rotation of various combinations of great talents.
"Ten Out of Tenn" came together (in 2007, I think) as a deliberate effort by its organizers and promoters to show the world outside the I-440 beltway what a broad spectrum of music is created in the town that bills itself as "Music City USA" — when most of the world outside Tennessee thinks Nashville only about "country" music. In that quest, the effort succeeds mightily.
Each of the ten performers on the bill is featured twice in the course of a show that ranges from straight-up country (Ashley Monroe), to this year's "Americana Album of the Year" (Sarah Siskind) to lyric folk (Andrew Belle), all kinds of infectious pop (Joy Williams, Madi Diaz), pantie-melting power ballads (Mikki Ekko), a bit of power-guitar rock (Jed Hughes), and even a touch of white-boy rap (k.s. rhoads) — the latter in just a sufficient dose that even this old fogie found it entertaining and enjoyable.
Yes, folks, there is ALL kinds of music being created and performed in Nashville, and this gang proves that the moniker "Music City USA" is entirely appropriate from whatever angle you want to look at it.
I've left the ReverbNation "Ten Out of Tenn" player widget in the column on the right of this page for a while now. Click "play" once and you can listen to a selection from each of the artists who has appeared in the past two tours.
Or, for today, indulge yourself in the player below, and treat yourself to the superior pop stylings of Madi Diaz (also pictured above).
I brought my Canon G-10 to the show and posted a selection showing each of the performers here on Facebook. And you can find almost all their music on lala_com, including the Ten Out of Tenn – Volume 3 Sampler CD.