What's Next

On today’s Broadway, you just don’t expect to walk down one of the liveliest streets in the United States of America, come to the corner of Second and Broadway, and stumble across the hit songwriter behind multiple number-one hits, plus his son, who just happens to be the writer behind some of the most popular new singers in the business.

That’s Casey Beathard and Tucker Beathard. And that’s not necessarily what Broadway is right now.
It’s still fun—a whole lot of fun. It’s bright lights and bachelorette parties and twentysomethings on scooters.

It’s still music, but it’s most often a very similar set of approximately a dozen songs that you hear in every bar and thumping out of every window.

But as Casey accurately observed Thursday night while he and Tucker played to an appreciative audience at the Neon Steeple, “Broadway needed a place for creativity. And Eric Church always has a way of knowing what’s next.”

He has said something similar before and has always meant it in a songwriting context. Casey once had a young songwriter come to him and say he wanted to write the next “Homeboy,” on which Casey was a cowriter. “Well, then you aren’t going to do it,” the veteran hitmaker told the rookie. “Because if you’re already trying to emulate someone, that’s not what Eric was ever trying to do with Homeboy.”

Church has a way of knowing what’s next with his songs—in addition to playing many of his multiple other hits for other artists, Casey played several on which he and Church collaborated, including “Like Jesus Does” and “Hell of a View.” He closed with a deep cut, “Where She Told Me To Go,” that was a perfect way of reminding you that even their collaborations that weren’t radio smashes are still incredibly good.

But he used the same insight with the building. Nashville residents don’t really go to Broadway anymore, almost as a point of pride. That’s for the tourists, not the locals.

But Thursday night brought multiple members of the record business to Broadway, where they took the opportunity to sit in the Steeple’s wooden pews and listen to real music, some of which has been out in the public for years and some—including a song Tucker played at the end of the set—that’s about to be released on a major star’s next album.

Playing this venue matters. How much? Tucker reminded the crowd that one of his previous appearances on the Neon Steeple stage came on the same day he got married. “I honeymooned here,” he said. He got married in the afternoon and took the stage that evening. That’s the weight the building carries.

It felt right to be in Nashville and be reminded of how songs start. One of the last songs the incredibly talented Tucker played was “I Bleed on Paper,” the perfect summation of really good songwriting. The music begins in a room like this, with some friends but also some strangers, and they get played out into the world, and then that world makes them into what they become.

In just three months of existence, Chief’s is already a place where that can happen. It’s a little piece of an older version of Nashville that might be harder to locate now amid the condominiums and the cranes and the party buses. But there are still many nights where it’s still right there at Second and Broadway.

“And hey,” Casey said near the end of the two-hour set, “you’ve still got until 3 a.m. when this place closes.”

There was still plenty of time for neon and the fun everyone associates with Broadway. Inside these walls, though, it was different—as it was intended to be.