The CMA Songwriters night, hosted annually at the Indigo stage inside the O2 Arena in London, is considered most people’s unofficial start to the whole C2C festival. An intimate night of stories and songs from some of the brightest and best writers that Nashville has to offer. This year the event was hosted by Country legend Darius Rucker alongside songwriting behemoth Jessi Alexander and Mickey Guyton, Wyatt Flores and Tucker Wetmore.
From the moment that Wyatt Flores launched into ‘Orange Bottles' this felt like a songwriters night very different to a lot of the nights hosted by the CMA at the C2C festival over the years. And not in a bad way. The diversity of sound and styles on the stage at the Indigo was, perhaps, the widest it has ever been in terms of ages, styles and experiences that brought each of the five artists to where they were this night. From Wyatt Flores' ‘Stillwater' origins through to Mickey Guyton's powerful and meaningful rendition of ‘Scary Love,' a song written for her son as he faced a medical emergency across to Tucker Wetmore ‘Silverado Blue' there was a remarkable breadth of Country music on display in London tonight. Topped off, in the first round, by Darius Rucker playing the breezy ‘It's Alright', it was a fascinating first round in which each artist chose to play something pertinent yet wildly different to anyone else on stage. It has to be said, Wyatt Flores sat for the whole time smiling and nodding his head to Darius' ‘It's Alright' and Jessi Alexander absolutely brought the house down with the power and range behind her version of Luke Combs' ‘Ain't No Love In Oklahoma.'
Round two of this fascinating show saw things develop and progress even further. Wyatt Flores, occupying the same seat and the same persona that Stephen Wilson Jr did at last year's show when he walked away with all the plaudits, decided to talk to the crowd about his weird day that saw him end up in the House of Commons and yet he also somehow managed to segue into a heartfelt and beautiful anecdote about his upbringing, his isolation from his paternal grandparents that also encompassed their descent into dementia before playing an impactful version of ‘Forget Your Voice.' I mean….. What? How can you follow that? Well, Mickey Guyton saw Flores' hand and raised him her own lived experience as a black woman in Texas with ‘Black Like Me' and a story about being bullied at school and hearing the ‘N' word for the first time. Game. Set. Match.
Darius brought out ‘Beers and Sunshine' and Jessi Alexander played a cracking version of ‘Mine Would Be You,' the song she wrote for Blake Shelton but the damage had been done in the early parts of the round by the Flores / Guyton combo that had left the audience reeling on the ropes and gasping for breath! To be fair, Tucker Wetmore dug deep into his own reserves and treated the London crowd to ‘Whiskey Again,' a song from his debut album that isn't being released till April that also features Jessi Alexander on backing vocals. Wetmore impressed tonight, his range, his presence and his interaction with the crowd was both engaging and interesting, proving that he might well have the chops to succeed in a genre that is hard to crack. Colour us intrigued.
For the rest of the night the songs and the feels came thick and fast. Wyatt Flores talked about his family again in a way that endeared him to this London crowd before a spirited version of “When I Die,' that finished with Mickey Guyton saying that he was ‘weird, but in a good way,' before she hugged him! Darius talked about moving to London and shared an unreleased song that doesn't even have a name yet, explaining that it has been written as a duet and telling the audience that they should imagine Adele being the female voice on it. If this is a sign of what's coming down the line from his relocation to the UK and the next phase of his career – bring it on, we say! Jessi Alexander talked about her love of Guinness before proceeding to play a song that, in her own, words, died at number 30 on the charts. It turned out to be Morgan Wallen's ‘The Way I Talk,' which elicited a big audience sing along whilst Tucker Wetmore chose to end this round with ‘Wine into Whiskey' and a hilarious anecdote about how all the writers on this song showed up to the write that day all hungover, for their own various reasons, Wetmore's being that it had been his birthday the day before. This is the beauty and the joy about these songwriter nights – you get to hear the stories behind the songs in a way that just isn't possible to convey from the stages that they normally play.
The final round saw Wyatt Flores delight with ‘Oh Susannah' in which he talked about his own mental health and also saw Tucker Wetmore shout ‘We love you Wyatt' from across the other side of the stage. Jessi Alexander played ‘The Climb' and talked about her marriage to fellow songwriter Jon Randall and how he had wrote ‘Whiskey Lullaby.' ‘The Climb' slayed as the room lit up their phones and gave Alexander the big ‘artist' moment that she was hoping to get but it didn't do much for Tucker Wetmore, who exclaimed ‘Holy shit,' in having to follow it! ‘Wind Up Missin' You,' Wetmore's first number one did a good job before the inevitable ‘Wagon Wheel' finale that was always going to happen. People stood, people danced and Darius made everyone laugh when he said that sometimes people ask him if he ever gets tired of playing that song to which he replies, ‘Are you fucking crazy?'
As the traditional opening to the C2C weekend in London, the CMA Songwriters night has always been a night for the purists, for the lovers of the stories and for the people wanting to spend time with the folks that write the music that they love. This year's event was fascinating. There was a range, breadth and diversity of sound, style and life experience hitherto never seen before in London but it worked and only goes to show the strength in depth that Country music has. From the ‘Welcome to the Plains' storytelling of Wyatt Flores to the dislocated experience of an artist like Mickey Guyton through to the power-writing know-how of Jessi Alexander. Sprinkle a little up-and-coming Wallen-esque groove of Tucker Wetmore and the consummate entertainment of Darius Rucker and you've got a diverse yet classy evening of Country music 2025 style – the umbrella is wider than it used to be and the genre is all the more stronger for it. Long may it continue.
