Co-writers Jim Femino (left) and James Otto (right) enjoy part of the presentation.

Pictured are (l to r): co-writer Jim Femino, Warner-Chappell’s Dale Bobo, BMI singer/songwriter James Otto, BMI’s Jody Williams and Keith’s Wild Bunch Music’s Alan Kates.

Photos by Kay Williams

The group arrives in Key West. Pictured are: Front row (l to r): Wendell Mobley, Kylie Sackley, Virginia Davis, Jenn Schott, Melissa Pierce, Frank Myers, Vickie McGehee, Amber White, BMI's Bradley Collins, Cliff Cody; Back row (l to r): BMI's Mark Mason, Philip White, Fred Wilhelm, James Dean Hicks, Natalie Howard, Patrick Davis, Lee Brice, Brian Davis, BMI's Charlie Feldman and Eddy Raven. (Photo by Alan Mayor)

The festival also saw its first wedding this year, as songwriters D. Vincent Williams and Melinda Hutchings tied the knot while friends and peers looked on and wished them well.

The Key West Songwriter Festival is the brain child of Hog's Breath Saloon general manager Charlie Baur, and has grown from a weekend's worth of shows for the locals into a week-long extravaganza featuring many of the hottest writers in the country. BMI's inaugural role began in the festival's infancy and has ripened into that of devoted supporter and sponsor. The number of BMI affiliates in attendance continues to grow each year as coveted slots multiply through the addition of nearby venues. "This has become a vital event for Music Row," BMI's Mark Mason reflected. "Really, it has the feel and significance of a SXSW for songwriters."

Hog's Breath Saloon's recently opened listening room hosted various combinations of songwriters throughout the festival. Pictured are: (l to r): Jim Collins and Wendell Mobley. (Photo by Alan Mayor)

Songwriting elder statesman Hugh Prestwood attended the Key West festivities for the first time this year. "This was my first time at the festival. It was one of the most delightful experiences of my musical life -- a whirlwind immersion in a tropical Oz populated with amazing, hard-partying songwriters," he mused. "I came away inspired, rejuvenated and a bit hung-over. If good fortune allows, I am determined to be there every year."

Songwriting luminary Hugh Prestwood wowed fellow songwriters and audiences alike. (Photo by Alan Mayor)

One is hard-pressed to find views that rival Key West's panorama. (Photo by Alan Mayor)

Following their In-The-Round performance at the Key West Tropic Theatre are Tim Nichols, Marc Beeson, Craig Wiseman, Kendall Marvel, Jeffrey Steele and BMI's Shelby Kennedy. (Photo by Alan Mayor)

A cruise ship docks in Key West. (Photo by Alan Mayor)

BMI writers Melinda Hutchings and D.Vincent Williams tie the knot poolside at the Mango Tree Inn in Key West.

Festival organizers were presented with hand-painted mini ukuleles from their appreciative friends at BMI. Pictured are (l to r): BMI's Mark Mason, Hog's Breath owner and festival chairman Charlie Bauer, Mango Tree Inn owners Peggy and Johnny Newberry, "We've Got the Keys" event manager Nadene Grossman.

BMI's Mary Loving and writer Vickie McGehee grab some shade at the Cinco de Mayo pool party, which featured acoustic performances by Detox & the Redneck Rock Stars, Brian Davis and James Otto. (Photo by Alan Mayor)

Some of the guys hang out during some down time. Pictured are (l to r): BMI's Mark Mason and songwriters Brett James, D. Vincent Williams, Chuck Jones and Jeffrey Steele. (Photo by Alan Mayor)

(Front) Big & Rich's John Rich and Big Kenny, (back) Chevrolet's Phil Caruso, T. J. Martell Foundation Board member Greg Oswald, Gretchen Wilson, CITR founder Frances Preston and Nashville Martell Foundation Executive Director Roxanne Johnson

Former BMI President & CEO Frances Preston, who serves as president of the Foundation's board and as a Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center board member, hosted the event she founded 11 years ago. Proceeds support innovative research at the VICC's Frances Williams Preston Laboratories.

Preston Labs Director Dr. Hal Moses, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Director Dr. Ray DuBois, Kevin and Linda Martin, Frances Preston, and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Board chair Orrin Ingram

Musical highlights included concerts in the Club Med Theater by Charlie Daniels, Kenny Loggins, Kathy Mattea, 2004 BMI Country Songwriter of the Year Casey Beathard, Jamie O'Neal, and MuzikMafia members Gretchen Wilson, Big & Rich, James Otto, Jon Nicholson, Cowboy Troy and Rachel Kice. Other writers and artists who performed were Deborah Allen, Aaron Barker, Suzy Bogguss, Chuck Cannon, Gary Chapman, Doug Crider, Dean Dillon, Bob DiPiero, Scotty Emerick, Doug Johnson, Robert Earl Keen, Crosby Loggins, Gary Morris, Frank Myers, Paul Overstreet, Leslie Satcher, Jeffrey Steele, Jon Vezner and Lari White.

CITR participants saw first-hand the impact that cancer has on families ñ and the importance of the research that their generosity supports ñ as they got to know Don and Margaret Darnell and Kevin and Linda Martin, guests of the event. The Darnells' daughter Katie, who died of brain cancer in 2003, gained fame for her song "Rescue Me," recorded by John Rich of Big & Rich and Wynonna Judd. Kevin Martin has advanced colon cancer as the result of an inherited condition called FAP; one of the Martins' five children is known to have inherited the condition.

The week was punctuated by emotional highlights surrounding the Darnell and Martin families. Chevrolet presented Katie Darnell's parents with a new Silverado. The Darnells also joined Big & Rich on stage as part of Performances by Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson Presented by Chevrolet. (To learn more about Katie's story, see the VUMC Reporter's Feb. 9, 2001; April 13, 2001; and June 20, 2003 online issues).

As for the Martins, they embraced all that Country in the Rockies has to offer -- skiing, riding snowmobiles, horseback riding, cocktail social hours, concerts and late-night guitar pulls -- with the same tenacity and enthusiasm with which they are attacking Kevin's cancer. (Click here to read the Martins' first-hand account of their trip).

Since 1993, the Martell Foundation has enabled physicians and scientists of the Frances Williams Preston Laboratories at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center to conduct cutting-edge research and quickly transition promising new findings from laboratory benches to patient bedsides. To date, the Nashville Division has raised $13 million in support of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center's pilot projects. In turn, these contributions have been leveraged to obtain additional funding ñ totaling more than $100 million ñ from public and private sources to further advance ongoing efforts to alleviate suffering from cancer.

Sure, Music City is the home base for the duo of Big Kenny and John Rich, and pretty much the only city in America where an avowed rocker dude (Big) and a hardcore country singer (Rich) could come together and make “country music without prejudice,” a hybrid of just about everything a music fan could ever love.

And the Tennessee capital is the locale for the pair’s MuzikMafia, a collective of friends, musicians, raconteurs and renegades who get together once a week and where “everybody’s welcome no matter what they play, no matter what kind of music they make, as long as it’s great,” says Big Kenny.

Big Kenny (last name: Alphin) was fronting his former band luvJoi when he met and started writing music with Rich, who had recently left Lonestar to pursue a solo career. The pair, along with singer/songwriter Jon Nicholson and music publisher Cory Gierman, started the MuzikMafia nights, which has spun off not only Big & Rich’s career, but also Mercury’s James Otto and Sony Nashville’s Gretchen Wilson.

But Nashville is not where the new Warner Bros. duo, who co-produced (with Paul Worley) and co-wrote all the songs on their debut Horse of a Different Color , is feeling the shockwaves beginning to roll. It’s a little further south — and east.

“We were down in Florida playing for a station that’s been playing cuts off the record without anybody telling them what they could play, and we’ve got three songs in heavy rotation,” Big Kenny says. “So we go in [to a club] and the house band played three of our songs; they’d recorded them off the radio and learned them.”

And if you think they’d be irked that some bar band was stealin’ their gig, then you just don’t know Big & Rich. “We thought it was incredible. John and I walked up, got on stage and started high fivin’ all of ’em. They were trying to give us the microphones and we were like, ‘No way! You guys keep playin’!”

James Otto and BMI's Perry Howard

Mercury Nashville recording artist James Otto recently stopped by BMI to affilate with the performing rights organization. Upon moving to Nashville in 1998, Otto began playing writer's nights in Nashville and eventually met his producer, Scott Parker. The duo cut six songs in sessions that, according to Otto, "seemed like magic." The result was impressive enough to earn him his record deal. Otto's debut album is due late summer 2002.

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