Tin Pan South

April 2-7 at various venues around town

For information, visit www.nashvillesongwriters.com, or check this week’s Tin Pan South program insert in the print edition of the Scene

Being a songwriter in Nashville, even a successful songwriter, is a little like being a surrogate parent. After a long, solitary gestation period, you bring something into the world, only to hand it off to someone else. From then on, in the eyes of the public, you are no longer the parent. If you’re lucky, you get a check that reminds you of your part in the baby’s creation. But somebody else still has your baby—and all the holidays, the attention, the kind words of strangers that come with it.

That makes the annual Tin Pan South event the equivalent of a week’s custody and visitation rights for Nashville’s songwriting community. Starting Monday, for the next six days, the spotlight in Nashville clubs is not on the singer but the song—and more importantly, the songwriter. The event is billed as a festival, but it’s just as much a convention, a celebration, a networking opportunity, and a social outing for people who spend much of their days holed up in offices and practice rooms. It’s also a public show of solidarity for the city’s songwriting community, from the highest-rolling hit-millers to the folks who peddle their tapes up and down the Row every week without fail.

Tin Pan South, the brainchild of Nashville Songwriters Association International, posits Music City as the modern-day heir to New York’s legendary Tin Pan Alley, the hub of music publishing in the early 20th century. There craftsmanship and commerce collided on a daily basis, as some of America’s great popular tunesmiths competed for sheet-music sales with ditty specialists and hacks for hire. That’s as apt an analogy for current country radio as anyone could devise. Especially since country, unlike rock or rap, depends on a steady stream of material that isn’t generated by the artists themselves. Look at this year’s Tin Pan South lineup, and you’ll see a number of songwriters who constantly juggle their craft with the demands of the marketplace.

This doesn’t always make Tin Pan South the most exciting of music events. Too many shows this year feature writers-night lineups you can see most any weekend at the Bluebird. That breeds only complacency—or worse, cozy self-congratulation. The best moments at past Tin Pan South events have come from the unlikeliest pairings—such as Lucinda Williams banging her head with open-mouthed glee to the pure-pop ready-mades of the Smithereens’ Pat DiNizio. It would be great to see Nashville’s finest matched up against the best tunesmiths on the popular-music front today, whether it’s Britney Spears/Backstreet Boys wunderkind Max Martin or the Magnetic Fields’ standards-of-tomorrow supplier Stephin Merritt. The festival could use a lot more outside talent, if for no other reason than to show how strong Music City really is in comparison.

As Tin Pan South prepares for its 10th anniversary next year, these issues are worth keeping in mind. So is the wealth of Nashville songwriting talent located outside the country-music industry, from Bill Lloyd and Swan Dive’s Bill DeMain to up-and-comers like The Shazam’s Hans Rotenberry and the What Four’s Jason Phelan. So are the many songwriting talents who work outside a verse-chorus format—jazz artists, instrumentalists, world music performers. Granted, the festival operates on a limited budget. But we bring up these ideas only to suggest how great Tin Pan South can be, and what potential it has to enrich and invigorate the city’s songwriting community.

At best, over the next six days, you’ll frequently encounter songwriting of an unusually high caliber of professionalism, tunefulness, and accessibility. At worst, you’ll get a crash course in everything that’s killing country music, from bumper-sticker cash-ins and follow-the-leader trend-sucking to faceless, featureless co-writes that barely reflect the workings of one mind, let alone two. But there’s too much good music on hand for you to settle for less. Below, we’ve identified some of the highlights of this year’s Tin Pan South festivities:

Joy Riders Joy Lynn White, perhaps the city’s most undervalued country talent, performs with fiddle player Tammy Rogers, songwriter/producer Angelo (“Believe Me Baby (I Lied)”), and Duane Jarvis, the rare person who gets to co-write with Lucinda Williams. (7 p.m. April 4, Bongo After Hours)

Guy Clark Wanna learn how to write vivid, personal, richly detailed country songs that are nevertheless commercially viable? Hell, we don’t know, but it’s worth a lot more of your time to check out the man who wrote “Dublin Blues,” “Texas Cookin’,” and a half-dozen of the coolest story-songs ever. With Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane, and Verlon Thompson. (7 p.m. April 4, 6º)

Dana Cooper Cooper has steadily built a following as one of Nashville’s most tuneful and literate singer/songwriters, and you’ll likely hear songs from his new Red Letter Day CD at this “Men at Work” showcase with Tom Kimmel, Don Henry, and Pierce Pettis. (9:30 p.m. April 4, Douglas Corner)

Swaggin’ Around Pet Sounds meets power pop in the simmering Nashville supergroup SWAG, and a lineup that includes Warren Pash, Ken Coomer, Jerry Dale McFadden, Doug Powell, and Robert Reynolds plays songs off the band’s new Yep Roc record—and maybe a few nuggets from their solo careers. (9:30 p.m. April 4, Radio Cafe)

Squares in the Round This is the first time we’ve ever seen R.B. Morris described as a “square,” but since the literature-steeped rocker’s company includes songwriter/producer R.S. Field and the V-Roys’ A. Scott Miller, we can only assume the title is tongue in cheek. Or something. (9:30 p.m. April 4, The Sutler)

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Show One of the week’s can’t-miss events, as formidable a bunch of hitmakers and raconteurs as Nashville can assemble: Bill Anderson, Randy Goodrum, Wayland Holyfield, Dickey Lee, Norro Wilson, and the one-and-only Cowboy Jack Clement. Prepare for a jukebox worth of keepers, from “Guess Things Happen That Way” to “The Most Beautiful Girl.” (7 p.m. April 5, Bluebird Cafe)

Jimmy Webb He wrote “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Up, Up, and Away,” “MacArthur Park,” and “Wichita Lineman,” and he’ll play at least a few of them on piano. With Beth Nielsen Chapman, Bill LaBounty, Karen Taylor-Good, Larry Weiss, and host Mark T. Jordan. (7 p.m. April 5, 6º)

Kevin Gordon, Tom Hambridge, Gwil Owen, Jeff Black Oscar nominee Owen leads a strong lineup of singer/songwriters, including rootsy wonder Gordon and longtime local favorite Black. (7 p.m. April 5, 12th & Porter)

Tommy Womack Womack writes music as eloquently as he writes about it, and at his best he’s our hometown Randy Newman—a satirist whose killer hooks draw blood. With Jim Reilley, Jennifer Hicks, and the city’s unsung hope for musical theater, Daniel Tashian. (7 p.m. April 6, Bongo After Hours)

Bob Bradley This riveting singer/songwriter doesn’t need his usual guitar army to kick your ass, and he’s flanked here by cosmic bluesman Aashid Himons, Laurie McClain, and Dignus frontman Diggy. (7 p.m. April 6, Radio Cafe)

Marcus Hummon The Dixie Chicks hitmaker and musical composer performs on a solid bill with Radney Foster, George Ducas, and Carolyn Dawn Johnson. (9:30 p.m. April 6, 12th & Porter)

Hugh Prestwood, Skip Ewing, Mike Reid Each of these men has been covered by everyone from Trisha Yearwood (“The Song Remembers When”) to Prince (“I Can’t Make You Love Me”); together, they’re joined by a mystery guest who’d better have some chops. (7 p.m. April 7, Bluebird Cafe)

Richard Addrisi With his brother Don, he wrote The Association’s 1967 blockbuster “Never My Love,” which is still played 1,000 times a day on radio. He’s part of an NSAI showcase that includes Fred Knobloch, Lisa Aschmann, and Jason Sellers. (7 p.m. April 7, The Sutler)

Allison Moorer, Lonesome Bob, Mike Ireland, Hayseed The antidote to almost everything wrong with country music can be found on this one bill, from intensely personal songwriting to the kind of charisma, talent, and excitement a marketing department can’t manufacture. If you can’t make it out any other night, see this show and the one below. (7 p.m. April 7, 12th & Porter)

Paul Burch, Tom House, Phil Lee, Amy Rigby After checking out the 12th & Porter bill above, hotfoot it across town for this amazing showcase, which brings together four of Nashville’s best, brightest, and most distinctive singer/songwriters. Burch’s collaboration with novelist Tony Earley is the kind of outside-the-box shake-up Music City could use more often, and we’re damn lucky to have Rigby and House, two of the most acclaimed songwriters in the country. But Lee, the former truck driver and show-stopping cut-up, writes the kind of rollicking tunes and sucker-punch weepers that built Music Row. Anyone listening? (9:30 p.m. April 7, Bongo After Hours)