Is 59 years of age too late to be an aspiring musician? How about 64? In Nashville you are never too old to turn that catchy tune and moving lyrics running around in your head into a hit song. Nashville is billed as the ultimate star-making factory. Can’t play an instrument or carry a tune? That’s no problem in Nashville, and we are proof of that. For our birthdays, we produced a song that is sure to chart on the Sheric Top 40.
In order to get our inner Nashville flowing, we began with a traditional Nashville Hot Chicken challenge. Akin to the Pat vs. Geno cheesesteak battle in Philly, we put Prince’s Hot Chicken up against Hattie B’s.
Before the Hot Chicken gourmands start clucking that Red’s or Hangry’s or any other number of hot chicken shacks that populate Nashville are the real winner, let us answer in two parts. One, we know. We grew up in Philly. We do not go to Pat’s. Or Geno’s. The best is always a hole-in-the-wall locals-only secret. Two, who cares? It’s a piece of breaded deep fried chicken breast with hot sauce. This one is all about attracting tourists who won’t know the difference anyway.
Drum roll …. The answer is that Hattie’s is winning with six premium locations by serving dressed up Chick-fil-a’s while Prince’s has four lower key locations with hotter, fatter, tastier sandwiches. Hattie’s is a better restaurant experience that decided to specialize in Hot Chicken. Prince’s is the OG. It is a better sandwich with better sauce. But, you have to prioritize setting your mouth on fire over location, service and a view.
Now that Sheric settled that age old Nashville question, we were ready to set Music City on fire. The recording studio is NashVox, which specializes in introducing amateurs to the music creation process. We came prepared with six pages of lyrics, which it turns out is way too many words for one song. Hey, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was 15 pages, so who knew. Apparently, we are no Queen.
Working with the immensely talented musician Jamie Adamson, we locked ourselves in a small recording room and did not come out until the magic happened. Fortunately we had recently streamed “It All Begins With a Song” on Prime – an in-depth dive into Nashville’s legendary song writing history. Armed with the deep knowledge gained from watching a TV show, we dove in.
Sheric on laptop, Jamie on guitar, AI in the cloud, back and forth we vibed. The impersonator complex faded and we began to feel like real artists as lyrics and tune melded together to become what felt a whole lot like an original song. We can honestly say that it is a real high to collab. with the real deal (JA) and produce a toe tapping sing along that Spotifies on Garth Brooks station.
Did it work? The artist can never be the judge. We equally are in love with and simultaneously feel exposed in everything we do, write, paint, or sing when sharing with the cloud. We wrote ballads that began with our first date, progressed through a few existential crises we faced, and wrapped up with a tour through some of Sheric’s Adventures. Can’t have umpteen ideas in one song cause no radio station would play that. We ended with a message that resonated with us.
The final product centered on …. Well, you will just have to listen to it if you want to know.
Soaring on a song writer’s high, we left NashVox with our production song just like they promised and celebrated with a martini and fancy apps at Maneet Chauhan’s Nashville culinary destination. Being huge fans of the Food Network, we know all their stars and Maneet is right up there with Bobby Flay. In the glow of the display of her two Tournament of Champions’ belts, we toasted our first and likely only hit song. For the record, no one at the bar had heard our song yet. We guessed that a hit song takes time to move up the charts.
With Sheri’s 59th coming to an end, we relaxed back at our 30 feet of gravel off of the freeway for our last night in Nashville. While Sheri sorted through the gems she picked up at Turnip Green Creative Reuse center earlier in the day, an aspiring musician played to four campers on the back porch strumming his guitar over the din of passing traffic. He was no JA but nevertheless he was talented. Another aspiring musician just one break from making it big. We knew exactly how he felt.
