ERNEST showcases future stardom at Nashville's Ryman, Keith Urban, HARDY guests
Big Loud-signed and Nashville area native singer-songwriter ERNEST performed for the first of two headlining nights at Lower Broadway's Ryman Auditorium on Tuesday evening.
He named his two-year-old son after the venue. Thus, for the "Flower Shops" vocalist, it was a career-highlight moment.
The concert showed the victories and perils of having a catalog of music that has primarily served as the metaphorical garnish, but not the highlighted steak, of country music's mainly streaming success-defined pop-crossover era.
ERNEST is an artist now responsible for over one billion streams of five years of his material on Spotify alone. Five years ago, he was a pop-aimed rapper evolving into a suave, country-crooning balladeer.
How unexpected the success of that jump was -- and therefore how ERNEST is meeting the required evolution to be an artist ready to handle the professional calling of his star-making growth -- was, more than his apparent skill, the true star of the show.
How was ERNEST's stardom born and how has it sustained?
2023 is the halfway point of what will be the artist and songwriter born Ernest K. Smith's decade-long evolution into a country superstar. It's arrived in a mega-massive manner.
As a performer, he's played a barnstorming set of nearly 100 dates in arenas and stadiums worldwide as an opener for Morgan Wallen and HARDY, plus Parker McCollum and numerous others.
As a songwriter, he's earned that touring schedule having worked alongside Wallen and HARDY (among many) and successfully shepherding country into an era where its most commercially successful sound blends trap-style R&B, Tennessee whiskey-soaked, tear-stained red-dirt Texas stylings, plus the most pop-ready trappings of mainstream music's greatest physical unit-selling era of 1995-2005.
His vocal chops have earned him a hit with his Wallen duet "Flower Shops," as well as sustained critical acclaim and consistent streaming playlisting with his two-year-old double album that shares a name with his hit single.
He received a plaque highlighting his Spotify success before his headlining set. He spoke at length about how his work as a songwriter for other artists benefitted him, discovering what could allow him to stand out uniquely.
If anything, his 27-song headlining set (opened by his singing and songwriting compatriots Cody Lohden and Jake Worthington, who was recently named Male Artist of the Year and Country Album of the Year winner at 2023's Texas Country Music Awards) showcased the breadth of gifts he's earned from his work.
However, that headlining set being more focused and intentional as a highlighting showcase of the art in his craft -- but not an overwrought compendium of a quarter of his entire solo catalog in full and songs cut by other artists -- could evolve his live performance into his superstardom-making moment.
Yes, ERNEST played 27 songs -- many were enormous hits
When ERNEST is alone, onstage with his guitar stripping back how he attempts to write instant classics -- or keenly aware that the songs he's playing are enormously popular hits -- the confidence of his background as an R&B devotee making country music appears.
Imagine an artist who is the best parts of R&B favorites of 30-something ERNEST's teenage years like Craig David or Brian McKnight, combined with Hall of Fame-level classic country radio favorites like Merle Haggard and George Jones.
His solo takes on his duet with Wallen on 2023 "On Thing At A Time" album favorite "Long Live Cowgirls," Diplo-released Wallen and Julia Michaels collaboration "Heartless," Jelly Roll single "Son of A Sinner, Wallen's "Wasted on You" and duet with co-writer HARDY on Wallen's "More Than My Hometown" were particularly strong.
In the past three years, those songs have achieved over 20 million sales-equivalent units. If you walk around the corner and down Lower Broadway, they're also inspiring confidence in honky-tonk bands who would mortgage their careers to have one-one hundredth of ERNEST's current success.
However, a more significant facet of ERNEST's confidence appears when he drops the fourth wall and talks about his deep adoration for the country's traditions.
Covering Merle Haggard's four-decade-old "That's The Way Love Goes" makes ERNEST and his backing band, The Boys, appear to be faithfully striving to achieve the standard set by Haggard and The Strangers eventually. Merle had an octet backing him, while ERNEST is still gaining comfort as a composer, arranger and songwriter. Thus, The Boys are a trio.
For ERNEST and The Boys, two moments are particularly peerless.
Yes, show-closer "Flower Shops" is as much a show-stopper that highlights Chandler Walters as a growing star on steel guitar as it honors George Jones' creative legacy. However, Keith Urban's guest appearance as a backing guitarist for ERNEST and his band's take on John Mayer's soulful 2000s-era favorite "Slow Dancing In A Burning Room" doubled down on what was already one of the year's most unexpected and joyously inspired performances.
How can artists like ERNEST connect with country's next level of crossover growth?
Ten years into country's rise as a streaming-first format has created two generations of stars in the genre. The latest generation of the genre's digitally-defined star artists have bodies of work that have achieved a bizarre singularity and synchronicity of sorts that conflate time and place.
Country music's current crossover moment is as culturally and socially ubiquitous as streaming's grip over the music industry. Thus, the work required to get people in a live crowd not to chit-chat in pews as if they're at the gym or idly sitting in rush hour traffic is profound.
ERNEST's concert deeply exposed this notion.
Thus, it bears mentioning that the next hurdle the music industry must leap is getting a live crowd to understand the value inherent in paying 100,000 to a million times more to see an artist play a song live than that artist earns from fans streaming their songs on their smartphones.
Stars able to make that live attendance value add feel palpable enough to turn idle chatter into massive sing-a-long moments evolve into superstars in the genre.
Luke Combs' ability to make his live performance of "Fast Car" -- after someone gets out of their fast car after sitting in traffic and already hearing "Fast Car" on the radio twice -- a still-captivating one has occurred.
However, that's not a notion that's trickled down.
Because ERNEST is a comfortingly jovial troubadour with a catalog of material that's adorned but has not attained gold and platinum-selling acclaim in the modern era, something different occurred at The Ryman.
At moments, his set felt like listening to Jimmy Buffett's songs at a Margaritaville bar and grille as compared to someone attempting the equivalent of hearing Jimmy Buffet play "Margaritaville" at The Ryman.
It's not a slight to ERNEST's art. He's crafted music that has redefined global culture. However, the culture his art now defines is unprecedented and requires dynamic growth to connect with its exciting potential.
ERNEST at The Ryman -- Night One setlist -- 11/28/23
This Fire
Wild Wild West
Did It With You
Tennessee Queen
Son of a Sinner
Drunk With My Friends
Slow Dancing In A Burning Room (w/ Keith Urban)
Sugar
I Think I Love You
Nothin To Lose
Sucker For Small Towns
Wasted On You
Somebody's Problem
Locals Only
More Than My Hometown (w/ HARDY)
That's The Way Love Goes (Merle Haggard cover)
Comfortable When I'm Crazy
Kiss of Death
Classic
Feet Wanna Run
Bottle's Bout Dead
Some Other Bar
Heartless
Miss That Girl
Long Live Cowgirls
Flower Shops
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: ERNEST at Nashville's Ryman, Keith Urban, HARDY guests
