Photos: 20th Annual Tin Pan South Round-up

(L-R) Regions Bank's Lisa Harless; songwriter Jim Beavers; songwriter Jeff Stevens; Capitol recording artist/CMA Board member Luke Bryan; songwriter/CMA Board member Bob DiPiero; and CMA's Betsy Walker. Photo: Sara Lee

Tin Pan South celebrated its 20^th Anniversary with an estimated attendance between 9,500 and 10,000. This year, the 5-day festival was hosted at 10 venues, for 90 shows, with over 350 songwriters.

MusicRow was out reporting every evening. For show reviews click below.

Tuesday, March 27 — Hard Rock, the Commodore Grille, the Listening Room and the Rutledge

Wednesday, March 28 — Hard Rock, and Belcourt Taps & Tapas

Thursday, March 29 — The Bluebird Cafe, Douglas Corner, and The Rutledge

Friday & Saturday, March 30-31 — The Rutledge, The Bluebird, and back to the Rutledge

Also during the week, NSAI’s 12^th Annual Song Contest, presented by CMT, announced the winning title “Whiskey Sunrise,” a song written by Delaware native Andy Timmons. The song, which was among 2,000 entries, won Timmons a mentoring session with major Nashville publishers and Charlie Daniels, plus a new Gibson Acoustic Guitar and a performance slot at the Thursday, March 29 Hard Rock Café show with Dave Barnes, Brandon Heath, Brett James and Lee Thomas Miller. For the first time the contest included a Lyric Category, whose inaugural winner was Jeep Rosenberg of New York City with, “Old Friends and California Wine.” Rosenberg was awarded mentoring sessions with Tia Sillers and Dottie Moore.

In addition to music, Saturday night (3/31) featured a first for the festival, marriage proposal. In the middle of a round with Journey’s Jonathan Cain, Gary Morris and Chicago’s Jason Scheff, Morris invited couple Mark and Lauren to the stage to introduce his next song. Mark dropped to a knee and proposed to Lauren, who said ‘yes.’