A new organization is turning up the volume on local music in Franklin.
For the last 50 years, Frank Smith has been writing, recording and performing songs in different acts across the country. Now, having settled in Franklin as a card-carrying member of the local music scene, Smith and other local artists are banding together to promote local music in Macon County.
“We’re forming an organization called Macon Music – like ‘making’ music, but it’s Macon County,” said Smith. “It’s going to be to proliferate music in this town, and we’ve got a good little music scene going.”
With the help of fellow local musicians Dave Stewart, and Warren and Rhonda Drake, who have helped Smith get the new group off the ground, Macon Music will act as a resource for players to network among themselves and residents in need of their services.
While the group is still in its early stages, Smith hopes to one day provide a digital service where Macon residents can discover and book local musicians that fit their needs.
“Part of it could be that you can reach anything on your phone,” said Smith. “It might list the bands and their members so you hit a link and it hotlinks you over to a video of them playing. [You might say] ‘I think we want to use these guys at our wedding’ and hit another link and bam, you’re connected in and you’re booking them. … Anybody that has places to play music or people that want to make music, we want them all under this umbrella.”
In sowing seeds for the local music scene by connecting musicians with local patrons and venues, Macon Music will act as a kind of trade group for local players, but the group’s vision is not limited to just booking gigs. For the past several weeks, the group has organized weekend jam sessions at the Little Tennessee River Greenway and is even recording an album of original songs from local musicians.
“Each songwriter is going to contribute a song,” said Stewart, who is helping local songwriters record. “I’m getting with all the songwriters who are making a demo using my equipment, and it kind of gets them ready. We’re making a demo of each song, and I’m giving it to the engineer at Myriad for him to listen to and also to the songwriters themselves so they can listen to it and prepare to go into the studio.”
At Myriad Media Studios, the professional-grade local recording studio owned by Warren and Rhonda Drake, roughly a dozen local songwriters will record original songs for the compilation.
While the album is still in the production phase, the hope is that upon completion the group can showcase Macon artists by offering the album for sale at local shops and visitors’ centers. As founder of the Franklin Local Songwriters Group and leader of its monthly songwriting workshop, Stewart said he believes Franklin has untapped musical potential.
“I’m in the same boat that Frank is. I’m always trying to promote music and have more music going,” said Stewart. “As we have ideas, we try them out and see if they fit. We’ve found that there’s a lot of interest in music here.”
Between community jam sessions, connecting local musicians and patrons, and recording an album of local songwriters, Macon Music plans to takes an active role in the proliferation of music in Macon County. Even if they held a jam session every day, Smith said the music wouldn’t need to become stale.
“Music just fascinates me from an artistic standpoint. If I was to paint that painting,” Smith said, motioning to a painting in his studio, “It’s painted. Done. If I want to change it, I have to do another one. With music, you play it, you change it, you play it again, you change it, and next week you can change it again. It’s got all this fluidity that I think makes it the ultimate creation, because you can change it up at will.”