Jason Isbell, Yola and More Rule at To Nashville, With Love

OK, let’s say you want to help your tornado-ravaged neighbors by throwing a big concert and giving the money to charities that will help the city rebuild. It’s a very Nashville way of approaching a problem. 

You can’t just wing it. There are definitely some rules and if you follow them closely, success can be yours. Case in point: To Nashville, With Love, a benefit Monday night at Marathon Music Works put together by a new group (also called To Nashville, With Love) organized to collect funds for the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee — you can still donate via TNWL right here. At the gig, an Americana-heavy bill of Nashville stars (both local residents and frequent visitors we'll call honorary Nashville stars) put on one hell of a show.

Rule No. 1: Put up a good number. If you do an all-star showcase, there better be a big number on the end of it to help the recipients. That means getting the stars to donate their performances for free, getting a venue at little or no cost, getting the production folks to donate their time and energy putting it on and someone has to produce this event for free, too.

That’s an awful lot of free. In the case of To Nashville, With Love, the combination of William Morris Endeavor agents wrangling talent, Lightning 100 promoting and emceeing the show and stars like Sheryl Crow, Jason Isbell and Brandi Carlile providing the starpower allowed the event to sell out in less than an hour, despite the $75 ticket price. All of the acts committed within 24 hours for a show that was, at the time, five days away. More than $400,000 was raised, including money from sponsors, before anyone had sung a note. That number climbed to more than $500,000 by the time it was over, with simulcasts on WRLT and YouTube acting as a kind of telethon. 

Rule No. 2: Have some built-in crowd-pleasing moments. In a nearly four-hour concert with several acts new to much of the audience (Katie Pruitt, Ashley McBryde, Kendell Marvel, Soccer Mommy), it helps to have a few songs guaranteed to stir everyone. Remember, a benefit crowd isn’t really anyone’s audience. Kicking off with Old Crow Medicine Show, a perennial Nashville New Year’s act, is one way to do it — even if they did play “Wagon Wheel.”

At some point, Brandi Carlile’s “The Joke” will stop making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but Monday was not that day. As she reached the chorus of her opus on marginalization — “I have been to the movies / I've seen how it ends / And the joke's on them” — you could feel the crowd lifting slightly out of their shoes, rising with the break in her voice. 

Similarly, Isbell never sells “Cover Me Up” short. A tale of love and newfound sobriety, the former Drive-By Trucker sings with a power and ache few can match. The Nashville imagery was not lost on the crowd — “So girl, hang your dress up to dry / We ain't leaving this room / Till Percy Priest breaks open wide / And the river runs through” — with many having spent volunteer hours cleaning up areas not far from the lake. 

And Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” never fails to turn into a sing-along. These kinds of bigger moments gave acts like Aaron Lee Tasjan and McBryde the space to find moments of their own, despite being lesser-known than some of the names at the very top of the marquee.

Rule No. 3: Keep it moving. Top-billing acts got three songs, everyone else got two. Otherwise it would have been a 12-hour show with the audience standing on Marathon’s unforgiving concrete floors. God bless the techs who quickly shuffled everyone’s setups on and off the stage. On the video screen between sets, messages from people who couldn’t be there played, including Rocco Grimaldi and Roman Josi of the Predators, Brittany Howard, Travis Denning, Orville Peck, Amanda Shires and more. 

Rule No. 4: Have an unexpected moment ready to go. Moment, meet Yola. The British-born singer’s collaborations with Dan Auerbach and Natalie Hemby were very good, but the next two songs brought the biggest roars of the night. It’s not often that someone has the chutzpah to cover a classic soul song as iconic as “You’re All I Need to Get By,” which was recorded by greats including Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin. But Yola crushed it. And then, there was an impromptu near-reunion of The Highwomen, with Yola reprising her verse from "Highwomen." Hearing that gorgeous voice cry “I was a Freedom Rider / When we thought the South had won / Virginia in the spring of ’61” was pure electricity.

There were three things I wondered while seeing Yola for the first time. First: What must it be like to sing backing vocals beside her? The always-wonderful Hemby must have felt like she was standing beside the tracks as a train rushed by, shaking the earth. Second: What is it like when everyone on a very talented stage is watching you? As Yola belted out her Highwomen part, there were winners of multiple Grammys and earners of gold records all fixed on her. (Yola has been nominated for multiple Americana awards and Grammys in the past year but has yet to take one home.) Third: I’m not sure if the right analog for Yola is Aretha or Tina Turner. I can’t imagine how good she would be with a full band backing her on “Proud Mary.”

Rule No. 5: Send them out on a good note. Joined by Mike Grimes, whose Basement East venue took a direct hit from the tornado, Isbell and many others ripped through Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” which Grimes said was the last song played at his club on the night of the storm. The song gave Isbell a chance to show off his chops with a guitar solo worthy of Young’s jagged riffs.

Follow these rules, and you’ve got it made. If the relief concerts in the coming season match the quality of To Nashville, With Love, we’re going to be very entertained, and there’s going to be a ton of money raised for those in need.

Set List

Old Crow Medicine Show: Flicker & Shine, Tornadoes, Wagon Wheel

Katie Pruitt: My Mind’s a Ship (That’s Going Down), Loving Her

Brandi Carlile: The Eye, The Joke

Sadler Vaden: Next to You, Peace + Harmony, Here Comes the Sun

Ashley McBryde: Velvet Red, Sparrow

Kendell Marvel: Hard Time With the Truth, Hurtin’ Gets Hard

Soccer Mommy: Circle the Drain, Royal Screw Up

Jason Isbell: 24 Frames, What’ve I Done to Help, Cover Me Up

Dan Auerbach and Yola: Stand By My Girl, It Ain’t Easier

Yola: You’re All I Need to Get By

Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, Yola, Natalie Hemby: Highwomen

Sheryl Crow: If It Makes You Happy, Everything Is Broken

Brothers Osborne: Skeletons in Your Closet, It Ain’t Your Fault

Margo Price: The Grey Funnel Line, I’d Die for You

Aaron Lee Tasjan: Heart Slows Down, Success

Finale: Rockin’ in the Free World

See our slideshow for more photos.