Anthony Toner

Every time I go to a Chris Smither gig, I spend the following five days wishing all my songs sounded like Chris Smither songs. Thursday night past at the Errigle, and he’s up on the stage singing: ‘If I were young again, I’d pay attention’. I look around me at the audience, mostly men my age and older, a little padded in the waist and grey at the temples, and you can tell they know what he means.

Smither’s charm is that he never needs to hide behind metaphors and images – he’s so direct that he goes straight through and connects quickly. He’s a poet of the big and broken heart, a sublime ragtime-flavoured country blues guitarist with a metronomic tapping foot that just nails his comic timing right into your soul. And we laugh out loud and we shake our heads in wonder at how easy he makes it sound.

I’m buying a couple of albums like a teenage fan and I shake his hand and mumble that I’m a songwriter too, and I love the way he makes it sound like he just thought of it in that second. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘When you get lines like that, you just pounce on ’em and don’t let ’em go.’

If you’re new to Chris Smither, don’t be a stranger – check him out at www.chrissmither.com. And while you’re at it, support the good folks who bring him to your neighbourhood at the Real Music Club, Errigle Inn – www.realmusicclub.com. Upcoming dates include Darrell Scott on April 19, The Paperboys on May 5 and Kimmie Rhodes on May 14.

Austin is awash with the weird and the wonderful. It's like they dropped a bomb on the city and the only thing that survived are the musicians and the punters. The centre of town is closed to traffic, so people wander from bar to bar with the boom boom of rock bands rumbling out onto the street from all sides. And they rock around the clock. The Belfast contingent hit hard over the two days of showcases here in Texas. Latitude 30, the home venue, was packed on both days as acoustic acts took to the stage on Wednesday and the rock bands hammered it out on Thursday, welcomed to the stage by the Northern Ireland Music Industry Commission. And the overpowering reaction seemed to be one of delight. Lots of people wanted the well-put-together compilation CDs that were given out as souvenirs of the shows, and hopes are high that connections will be made for new opportunities for music from Northern Ireland. You can't help thinking of empty venues all over the world. Every band ever made seems to be here this week. And they're all high on tequila trying to catch the same cabs at 3am. By which time Romero's prophecy comes to mind - when there is no room left in hell, the dead will walk the earth.

After a seven hour flight, three hours hanging around Newark airport and then two hours in a plane the size of a Pringles tube, the first thing you want to do when you hit Nashville is... throw your stuff on the bed, shower, put on a clean shirt and hit the honky tonk barrooms!

And they’re amazing – Broadway is a blaze of neon, peopled with rawboned old men in Stetsons, buskers giving it everything they’ve got, pretty girls going from bar to bar, and all kinds of people enjoying the most amazing music. There are honky tonks up and down Broadway – about six of them in a row, including Tootsie’s, The Stage, Second Fiddle, Layla’s... We went to Robert’s (where you can also buy a pair of cowboy boots with your bottle of Bud), where a six piece band were setting up – stand up bass, two fiddles (including one heavily bearded Garth Hudson lookalike), drums, lead singer and a rockabilly guitar player with a quiff - who looked straight out of The Sopranos. The lead singer hails from South America, so the band is called - wait for it: BRAZILBILLY.

And they were superb. Hugely talented musicians, tight arrangements. They had set up the twin fiddle solos for the Bob Wills songs, the guitarist played some blistering rockabilly riffs. They played Silver Wings one minute, Suspicious Minds the next. In the middle of one of the numbers, they even dropped in an incredible note-for-note take of Jimmy Page’s guitar solo on Whole Lotta Love.

They were playing a FOUR HOUR SET. For TIPS. On a tiny stage where they could barely move. I had heard of this before coming here, and it still amazed me. Having said that, it pulls the audience-to-band relationship pretty tight: I play for you and the arrangement is that you pay something if you like me. And if I suck, you won’t put anything in the tip jar - and we don't get paid and we stop working in this bar. It’s kind of Darwinian.

The next day, Bap Kennedy, Ralph McLean and I went downtown to see the historic Ryman Auditorium, the fabled home of the Grand Ole Opry. They have all kinds of historic artefacts in glass cases, including Hank Williams’ suit, etc. But part of the tour offers the chance to stand on the stage and have your picture taken. It’s a total cornball tourist trap, but it’s irresistible – to stand where they stood - Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, everyone from Trisha Yearwood to REM, from Mae West to Rachmaninoff, from Spike Jones to Coldplay. And now Anthony, Bap and Ralph.

We were treated to supper at the home of Dr. Ian Brick, who has been one of the stalwarts of the Belfast Nashville connection, and who has tirelessly championed the cultural links between his former home city and Tennessee.

Today we hung out at Dan McGuinness’ pub, where there was a showcase gig featuring all of the Belfast songwriters – Bap Kennedy, myself, Ben Glover, Eilidh Patterson and Ken Haddock. Our special guests from Nashville were Tia Sillers and Mark Selby, and Belfast’s own Foy Vance joined us for what was a wonderful night. Again, making connections. In the audience were some of the Nashville songwriting royal family, including Gary Nicholson, Ralph Murphy, Nanci Griffith and Benita Hill.

Tomorrow night is our big show at the Belcourt Theatre, when we share the stage with Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith, Lee Roy Parnell and Gary Nicholson in what looks like being a sold out show before a host of people from the music industry. And then it’s up at the crack of dawn and on to Austin. More later. X

The enormous crowd that showed up at Madisons on Sunday afternoon for the final day of the Belfast Nashville Songwriters Festival were a testament to how far the event has come in the last five years. Everything about the festival seemed completely grown up this year: the brochure design, the stature of the artists, the attendances at the events – and the quality of attention that was paid during the concerts. Hats off to Colin and Anne and everyone who was involved in the week - it was a triumph. For me there were so many high points, but here’s a selection – in no order:

• Meeting Josh Rouse (above) – of whom I’m a huge fan (picture by Fran McCloskey);
• Getting to play lead guitar on 'Dance the Night Away' with Raul Malo;
• Meeting a man who worked at Belfast Harbour for 43 years, who had come to the Black Box just to hear ‘Sailortown’;
• Belfast Mayor (right) Tom Hartley’s speech on Sunday afternoon, celebrating songwriting talent and the creative spirit of the city;
• The Aphrodite pizzas at the Black Box café;
• Singing harmonies with Nanci Griffith on From A Distance.
• Hearing Ben Glover and the Earls in full flow for what looks like the last time in a while;
• Trying out new song 'The Duke of Oklahoma' in front of an audience;
• The free Jack Daniels shots at Madisons on Sunday;
• The Harvest Revisited night at Oh Yeah;
• The fact that EVERYBODY YOU MET wanted to tell you about the gig they had just come from, or went to last night, or were angry at having missed...

I met an old friend in the corridors of one of the public buildings the other day. She slowed as I approached.

- I have to say - I LOVE your album, she said.

I prepared my humble, grateful face. Oh, thank you, I said, glancing at the floor shyly and mustering sincerity and appreciation.

- At least, I love it more than SOMEONE obviously did, she added. I bought it in Save the Children for a QUID!