“Maybe a better question is, why does she have a TV show?” one of the guy asks aloud, to a great deal of giggling.
Another card is pulled, “Friday Night Brain.” And another: “Cougar on the Loose.” And still more: “Rednecks and Longnecks,” “Give it to Me Before My Beer Gets Cold” and “Flip You Like a Sack of Wet Cats.”
This is the night’s great song title, pitched by audience members at the quartet onstage for “Nashville Unplugged.” During the course of this weekly showcase at Rocks Lounge at Red Rock Resort, co-hosts Aaron Benward and Brian McComas, with guest artists Brett James and Tim Nichols will take that simple theme and construct a song. By the end of the night, that song will be performed by the men who wrote it.
This is the organic-yet-daring premise of “Nashville Unplugged,” which debuted at Ovation at Green Valley Ranch Resort four years ago and moved to Rocks Lounge in August. Every Friday at 8 p.m., Benward and McComas bring to the stage one or two songwriters, almost always from Nashville. The $5 cover is ridiculously low given the talent brought into the room. And, in addition to the Rocks Lounge shows, the duo also host a weekly radio show Saturdays at 9 a.m. on KCYE 102.7-FM.
In a format that is entertaining, even suspenseful, at “Nashville Unplugged” the artists sing and play songs written by Benward and McComas, then songs written by the guest artists, then dig into the cowboy hat for the audience’s often goofy song suggestions.
“Studying To Be Single,” for instance.
It takes a capable and confident artist to take the ideas of a commoner and make them something special -- or at least something that can be performed before a couple hundred people on a Vegas stage. Benward and McComas are up for that task.
As usual, the guests are accomplished songwriters. James is a monster writer, having written or co-written No. 1 hits by such artists as Martina McBride (“Blessed”), Kenny Chesney (“When the Sun Goes Down,” with Uncle Kracker and “Out Last Night,”), Carrie Underwood (“Jesus, Take the Wheel” and “Cowboy Casanova”) and Jason Aldean (“The Truth”). James also wrote “American Idol” champ Scotty McCreery’s debut single, “I Love You This Big.”
Nichols has a similarly chart-topping catalogue, and scored a huge hit for Tim McGraw with co-writer Craig Wiseman on “Live Like You Were Dying,” which spent 12 weeks at No. 1.
“I can’t tell you how many people tell me they have played that song, over and over, for inspiration. One woman just tonight was crying, telling me she had just been diagnosed with cancer,” Nichols says. “I can’t tell you how many have told me they have heard it played during eulogies at funerals.”
And in these doubtlessly adept hands is the song title, “Drinkin’ Stupid Away.” As McComas says, “We usually get silly suggestions. It’s the nature of the crowds we get. They are usually good-time crowds.”
This is how it goes, as Nichols, totally disconnected, sings a five-song set for the crowd. Then he introduces James, who bolts from backstage, and the project takes on a new partner as Nichols steps into the room.
And Nichols, who has been a songwriter for decades and wrote the anthem of all anthems for McGraw, contributes … hardly at all. He nods and grins, but is largely a bystander in the development of “Drinkin’ Stupid Away.” This song has already grown nearly to a finished product, and as McComas notes, “It is always tough to be the second guest to come into the process.”
Not that it matters. The song is not going to be recorded for commercial purposes. Usually, the finished product is akin to a novelty song.
“We don’t even save the lyrics,” Benward says. “Sometimes, I wish we had. Sometimes we’ll come up with a song and say afterward, ‘That was really good.’ ”
In each of the past two seasons, it seemed as if the streak was about to end for the Pirates, especially last year when they were 16 games over .500 on Aug. 8. Surely, they would make it, needing to win only 19 of their last 52 games. They won 16, finishing at 79-83.
Manager Clint Hurdle, starting his third season with the Pirates, is trying to find ways to improve his club on the field and later to address its mindset. Hurdle determined the biggest negative in the Pirates’ game was their woeful inability to stop opponents from running. Pirates’ foes stole 154 bases in 173 tries last year, meaning Buccos catchers threw out 11 percent of those runners.
But, given that the departed Barajas’ career rate of throwing out runners is 28 percent and not 6 percent, it is clear Pirates pitchers have to take some responsibility here, too.
“We understand that we have to take ownership of controlling the running game at a different level,” Hurdle said this spring. “More times than not, we didn’t really give the catchers a fair shot.”
The Pirates’ failure to control opponents’ running games last year or to improve their own running game (they stole the fewest bases in the league and had the worst success rate, 58 percent) were constants even when they were winning. When some other parts of the Pirates’ game withered down the stretch, the club fell from almost certain wild-card contenders to pretenders again.
“The end of the season brought attention to the specific things we need to do to get better (in order) to win more games, to win the division, to do things that championship teams do,” Hurdle said.
The Pirates should have starting pitcher Wandy Rodriguez, acquired from Houston, for a full season, to go with A.J. Burnett at the top of the rotation. Andrew McCutchen was the most valuable player in the league for the first four months last year before he tried to take on too much. His improvement and that of second baseman Neil Walker and third baseman Pedro Alvarez could give the Pirates a solid middle-of-the-lineup core.
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