Laura McGhee

Tonight I went down to the Red Rooster on Music Row to see a fine lass play the weekly Billy Block show. Laura McGhee has brought her own version of Americana over from Scotland and has been sprinkling it over Nashville for about a month or so. I guess she is the first artist from Scotland to make the Americana top 40. That's quite the accomplishment. Tonight was the first time she has graced us with a full band since she's been here on this trip.

I arrived just as they were finishing sound check, which, from what I could tell, should have been a little longer as you couldn't really hear much of Laura's guitar or awesome fiddle for most of the set. After an excruciatingly long and cheesy ramble from Billy Block about all the sponsors and media outlets and bad jokes, etc., Laura finally kicked off her show.

Off stage, Laura McGhee is a sweet young lady with an infectious smile and a loud laugh. When she steps on stage, she turns into a rock star. She belts out her self-written songs with a full voice and plays that guitar like Robbie Robertson, with the whole strum-point thing down to a science, especially when she covered the Band's "The Shape I'm In". The rest of her set, all songs from her current release "Celticana", included songs ranging from a pop sound, all the way around to a country twang. Songs such as "Radio Love" and "King Of Selfishness" have a poppy shine while "Memphis Crawl" has more of a country feel. A strong catalog all around, this girl is going to take this town by storm. We might as well coin a new phrase, Nashville-Poppi-Countri-Scotti-Rockicana. Look out Neil Young. There is another foreigner beating down your door looking to take your Americana kingship away. Unlike you, this one deserves it.