Rob + Holly with Nadine from The Key West Songwriters Festival

Audacy Music

Across 5 iconic Keys' locations, travel with Rob + Holly through incredible parks and excursions to give you a sample of what the Florida Keys and Key West is all about before you book your own trip.

Transcript

00:00Hey there with the Rob and Holly show and we are here with Nadine from the Key West Songwriters

00:05Festival and I got to bring this up first right up right off the red. Let me grab this. Never mind

00:11me saying hey I'm excited to be here. No I'm sorry I'm sorry. Well we got to get right into the good

00:18stuff. Well you showed us this before we started and I just couldn't believe all of the superstar

00:23names that were here in one year. Tell what year was this? So this is 2005 and I just pulled this

00:28off the wall in my office on my way out the door. It's one of my favorites. This festival started

00:33entirely grassroots. There were you know two or three artists the first year. There were eight

00:37artists the first year that I got involved with the festival and this year 2005 there were you know

00:42about 30 artists but among them you'll see Chris Stapleton. That's a big one. Lee Bryce, Jamie Johnson,

00:50I mean Randy Hauser, James Slater, Jeffrey Steele, Brett James was here that year. There's so many

01:00memories and so many amazing artists. So and this is not unusual to have these kind of names because

01:06tell us everyone that you've had at the Songwriters Festival. This is not unusual. It would take me way

01:11too long to rattle off that list but you know what's so magical about this festival is that

01:16we're featuring the Songwriters. We're inviting them down here to tell their stories and tell us

01:22what inspired them to write all these hits that you guys are playing on the radio that everybody

01:27enjoys and it's never the same. When you hear the artist who wrote it tell you the story and perform

01:33it the way they wrote it you'll be changed forever. Every time you hear that song you'll hear that artist.

01:39And we and we love stories. Will you tell us the story because we're here in the Blue Flamingo.

01:43Yes. And we want to hear the story about Luke Combs. Yeah you know uh you know this is the

01:48festival is kind of a rite of passage for these songwriters. They come down here and they perform

01:52and it's such a receptive audience to listen to their songs that have never you know they they've

01:57maybe never had a hit. Nobody knows who they are. So it was 2017 and Luke Combs was here and he was

02:04poolside right here at the hotel playing his songs. He left the festival and got a number

02:09one hit right after he was here in Q West and now of course he's a household name. Everybody knows

02:14Luke. If you're a struggling musician and you just feel like this that my big when is my big break

02:19gonna happen? You have to come here. It's a rite of passage right? It's like kissing the Blarney Stone

02:24and you're gonna get married right? You come to Q West you perform at the songwriters festival and uh you

02:29know it's just a matter of being inspired by Q West and making all these connections that that people make

02:35down here. They they meet and network with more artists and more people while they're in Q West

02:40at the festival than they do you know scheduling those those meetings in Nashville. It's definitely

02:46there's something special about this place and so wait is May 11th through the 15th always the

02:51always the time you do it? It is not it's always right around the first weekend in May uh this year

02:57coming up it starts April 29th. Amazing. And uh it goes always goes Wednesday through Sunday. We actually

03:02kick it off a little sneaky local show on Tuesday night um so come early and stay all week and uh

03:07and enjoy the festival. Well we need to come back because May 1st is my birthday and this might

03:11this might be a pretty good birthday. You're invited back. I think we might find a few people for you

03:16to interview while you're here. So how does an artist or songwriter how do they get on the uh schedule

03:23to play at the festival? So uh BMI presents the festival with us and they choose the artist uh primarily

03:30choose the artist to showcase. Of course there are a couple of legacy writers that we just you know

03:34they would be upset with us if we didn't have them back every year and then all of those new and up

03:39and coming uh writers that they want to feature that they just know have got that you know spark and

03:45they're gonna have the next number one hit or maybe they've got a few singles and you know they

03:50they are ready for a bigger audience or a bigger stage. Um you know what's so fun about this festival is

03:55we've got all these small stages poolside on boats and hotel courtyards and then we've got huge stages

04:01too we've got QS amphitheater we've got we close down Duval Street and we put up a huge stage and

04:06have a concert there on Saturday night and we have uh ticketed theater shows in intimate listening spaces

04:13and then we have really raucous rowdy you know the honky-tonk shows that go till two in the morning.

04:19You know we were just walking around and I heard a lot of country music coming from a lot of different

04:23bars and I and this is my first time here by the way welcome thank you and I but I said to myself

04:28this is like a tropical Nashville. It is uh it's really it's like this it's music of the south it's

04:35really the it's the place to be there's I mean so much happening every weekend there's something

04:39going on in Key West and we have so many great artists so many talented musicians and artists and

04:44there's music in every bar all types of all types of music and uh you know QS the songwriters

04:50festival is primarily country but we've had all types of music we've had Gary Clark jr down here

04:55we've got Raul Malo from the Mavericks I mean so many great different genres of music um a lot of

05:00country well Nadine thank you so much for joining us we appreciate your time been a pleasure thank you

05:05tell us the dates again so that we can make our plans to come down here April 29th to May 3rd

05:10all right we got it got it you've got to be here in Key West come on down we'll see you here at the

05:15Key West songwriters festival

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