Nashville Songwriters Showcase Craft Using Yamaha C3

Ronnie Milsap live on stage

NASHVILLE, TN (July 18, 2002)—Some songwriters achieve fame for performing their own works. Some enjoy their success in relative obscurity, supplying the hits that other artists bring to the public. In Nashville—a creative community that values its songwriters—both stood together in early April for the tenth annual “Tin Pan South” celebration, a weeklong series of performances and discussions at 18 different locations throughout the Music City.

Mike Reid performs at "Tin Pan South Piano Nights"

On April 3 and 4, The Country Music Hall of Fame and Yamaha jointly presented two “Tin Pan South Piano Nights” at the Hall of Fame’s intimate Ford Theater. With a C3 6' 1" Conservatory Collection Grand Piano provided by Yamaha as the only instrument on stage, host Mark T. Jordan (whose session work adorns Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey”) welcomed Randy Goodrum (Anne Murray’s “You Needed Me,” Steve Perry’s “Oh, Sherrie”), Mike Reid (Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me”), GRAMMY^® winner Ronnie Milsap (“Any Day Now”), Tracy Nelson (Linda Ronstadt’s and Etta James’ “Down So Low”), Mac McAnally (Jimmy Buffett’s “It’s My Job”), Graham Gouldman (The Hollies’ “For Your Love”), Tom Douglas (Collin Raye’s “Little Rock”), Stephen Allen Davis (Percy Sledge’s “Take Time to Know Her”), GRAMMY^® winner Melissa Manchester (“Midnight Blue”), Angela Kasset (Lorrie Morgan’s “Something in Red”) and Andrew Gold (“Thank You for Being a Friend,” popularized as the theme to television’s The Golden Girls) for two nights of music straight from the composers who brought it to life.

Randy Goodrum tickles the ivories in Nashville

Manchester, who owns two Yamaha pianos and says her kids take lessons on them, had nothing but praise for the C3 she and the other artists used on stage. “My experience with the Yamaha piano was sensational,” she says. “It’s full-bodied and very sensitive to the touch. I found that the more I played it, the more comfortable I got with just being there by myself, the more attuned I became to the subtleties of it, and the deeper my performance got.”

The annual festival not only gives members of the public a chance to hear what participant Chuck Cannon described in the Chattanooga Times as “the premier exhibition of songwriters in the world,” but it also gives the songwriters themselves a chance to interact, and for up-and-coming writers to spend some time rubbing elbows with the greats. Tin Pan South was presented by the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and Turner South.