It felt wrong to have an event in Music City without music… live music. And so Variety‘s inaugural Power of Women Nashville event differed from its predecessors on the coasts by having a house band to fire up the audience Thursday at Nashville Yards, made up of top local players well known to many of the VIPs on hand. They provided bumper music, yes, but in one key galvanizing moment during the program, these Nashville cats serenaded the four celebrity honorees with a medley of their own songs, bringing the house down and the already buoyant mood even further up.
Bringing in a band for the first time in the 16-year history of the Power of Women franchise was the brainchild of Go West Creative, a prominent, female-owned production agency in Nashville that Variety partnered with for the event. The band concept was curated by Go West Creative’s entertainment producer, Jeremy Vaughn, who brought in Tyler Cain as music director.
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Cain, who also served as guitarist, didn’t have to go far in his Rolodex to find a first-rank group of musicians, most of whom he’s played with for two decades or more, including keyboard player Jen Gunderman, drummer Chris Kimmerer, fiddle player Melissa Barrison and bassist Rob Cureton. He really did not have to go far to find a lead singer, being the longtime musical partner of boldface-Nashville-name Meghan Linsey. (And a personal one as well; People magazine covered their elopement in 2022.)
Linsey fronted the band in a medley of songs that began with honoree Reba McEntire’s “Fancy” and ended with Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough.” She then sang her own new single, “Humble Again,” a song about the ups and downs of her own career path, which included a top 10 country hit with the duo Steel Magnolia, a subsequent turn on the competition show “The Voice” (she came in second), and all the travails of trying to get airplay as an independent artist.
Linsey came into the ceremony having a connection with all four of the honorees but Crow — she even opened a tour for Reba. The other musicians all have had some kind of intersection with the honorees too, whether it’s Gunderman having been a member of Crow’s live band over the years, Kimmerer having a studio credit on one of Kelsea Ballerini’s albums or Barrison and Cureton putting in time with the house bands at the CMA Awards, CMT Awards and/or Grand Ole Opry. It was important, also, of course, that women be well-represented among the instrumental hotshots.
“I specifically called some of them because of their relationships with these artists,” says Cain. “The cool thing about this is, not only do all the musicians have connections to these artists that are being honored, but we’ve also all known each other for… well, for some of us, upwards of 20 years. Nashville’s such a community-driven town, and events like this really remind us how, over the years, everybody in this band has had connections not just to each other, but to these different artists that have really been parts of our journey or inspired our careers.”
The tribute medley was a highlight, as was the band backing guest artist Dasha on a version of her new Amazon Music Original single, “Here for the Party” (yes, the Gretchen Wilson classic). But Linsey’s reading of her new single, “Humble Again,” added a touching reminder of the struggles that artists who have not graduated to the Reba level go through in town, particularly the women, who face tougher odds to begin with and are fortunate to even be considered as good as their last mid-chart-peaking single, if they get that far.
One of the Power of Woman Nashville Impact List honorees, writer-director Callie Khouri, held her hand to her heart after hearing Linsey sing her new song at the luncheon and remarked, “It’s hard to eat when you’ve got a lump in your throat.”
Says Linsey, “I thought it was a good song for this event because it’s about Power of Women and the song is really about my journey in the industry and the ups and downs and everything that comes with it. It’s funny, because I feel like I’m really just now coming into my own. And I’ve been in this industry for so long, but I feel like I finally figured it out, with my sounds and what I wanna do.
“The momentum’s been really good on this single, and we’ve got another one coming in six weeks and then another one after that, and then I think we’re gonna drop the album. But I’ve been working on it for a long time and I’m excited about where I’m at in my life, because I’m jvery open and I’m very ready to be very honest, and I think that shows in this music.
“Honestly, I relate so much with each one of these women. I toured with Reba; that was one of my first big tours, in 2011. I did the All the Women I Am tour with her. I’m friends with Mickey (Guyton). We’ve kind of had a similar path and story, I think, just because she’s been working at this so long and so hard, and we’ve texted about the industry many times over the years and how difficult it’s been at times for both of us. And just to see her in this light is so inspiring. Kelsea, obviously, I’ve known since before she had a hit on the radio. And I don’t know Sheryl, but I feel like I do, because I’ve been listening to her music since I was a kid. So it’s really cool that I can see myself in each one of these women. It’s crazy to get to sing their songs to honor them.”
Implicit in Power of Women, for Linsey, is the Power of Perseverence. “Listen, I’m still here. That’s the thing. I literally got my first record deal in 2009 and I’m still here and I’m still putting out music and still showing up, and I think that’s the most important thing. At the end of the day, that is the power of women — the fight and just staying with it.”
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