The Cartersville Songwriters Exchange First Meeting at the City Loft

On Wednesday, The Cartersville Songwriters Exchange met for the first time at The City Loft in historic downtown Cartersville. The owners are very supportive of us and we were waited upon beforehand and had a chance to order some delicious food and drink from The City Cellar, the adjoining restaurant. The founder of the group, Randy Owens, and promoter Chris Hereth addressed us and laid out their plans on how the CSE would be run from this point forward including membership classes, how meetings would be conducted, plans for events featuring open mic competitions and a quarterly showcase. The hope is to generate interest from the music industry as well as to capture the attention of the potential fans of original music in Cartersville and the surrounding area. Afterward, all songwriters present had the opportunity to perform and the option of whether or not to be critiqued. New members Allen Hicks and Jeffrey Putnam performed and we were all impressed with their original material. Allen and Jeffrey perform occasionally in Nashville at The Commodore. They seemed enthusiastic about joining and said they were planning on attending future meetings whenever they could. Other songwriters in attendance were Denise Barker and Billy Owens as well as the usual suspects - myself, Randy Owens and EZ Powell. EZ and Randy provided PA's, mikes and a mixer so much thanks for that! I was getting so used to performing in a purely acoustic setting I was a little unaccustomed to plugging into an amp again. EZ joined me on bass when I performed my set and I got a chance to play harmonica during EZ's set as well as with The Owens Brothers. I am looking forward to next Wednesday's meeting.