When someone says "you have to see this guy" and that someone is Ken Coomer, former Wilco drummer and current hot producer in Nashville, you listen.
Expecting a lot and hearing/seeing twice as much, though, is a whole different story.
Meet Cody Brooks. In a sea of fish, he is a shark (albeit a friendly one).
After a warm handshake and a thoughtful conversation, Cody erupted in a jaw dropping intimate performance. Why jaw-dropping? In addition to the intensity of Brooks' guitar playing and singing, you realize he's not trying to write a hit. Not trying to "get a deal." He's not trying to make you like him.
He's just playing and singing out of an absolute need to release the world inside him. And that might just accidentally result in all the things he's not specifically "trying" for.
To me, it's refreshing.
Scot Sax knows his way around a solid pop song. The Philadelphia musician has been writing them for years, whether it was with his own bands Wanderlust and Feel, or as a purveyor of hits for singers like Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. It was Sax, in fact, who co-wrote the country duo’s Grammy-winning smash “Like We Never Loved At All.” His catchy “I Am the Summertime,” penned while with the band Bachelor Number One, was featured in the blockbuster “American Pie.” And he’s netted countless TV credits, with song placements in shows like “Ghost Whisperer,” “NCIS,” “CSI: NY” and “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” He toured as a guitarist with Sharon Little throughout North America supporting Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand. His filmmaking debut, the documentary "Platinum Rush," is currently being entered into film festivals worldwide and will premiere in 2015. Sax lives in Nashville with his family.
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