Artist POV: Brandy Clark Perfects The Art Of Storytelling

Brandy Clark has taken a revered Nashville tradition – the writers’ round – and adapted it for the road without sacrificing the intimacy or impact of her deeply personal catalog of hit songs.

On the first night of her current headline run, “An Evening with Brandy Clark,” at The Pyrle in Greensboro, North Carolina, Clark transformed the sonically pure 1,000-cap music hall into a spellbound listening room that rivaled any of Nashville’s famous songwriter hubs. 

“I always approach everything as a songwriter first,” says Clark. “I wouldn’t have an artist career if I wasn’t a songwriter. So, it always does start with that for me.”

Backed by Gabe Burdulis on guitar and Amanda McCoy on bass, the stripped-down format suited Clark’s vocal artistry and authentic style. The emphasis was on storytelling, lyrics, musicianship and audience connection.

The setup was intentional.

“I think the intimacy of bringing it back to just the song really helps,” says Clark. “And because it’s just myself and a bass player and guitar player, I stop to tell a few more stories about how the songs came about, about what they mean to me – and I can really start to ramble sometimes – but I find people like that.”

Her approach is conversational and accessible: “I’m talking about the emotional inspiration,” she says.

The acoustic show, which ran nearly two hours, was a mix of her solo songs “Broke,” “Stripes” and “Dear Insecurity” – winner of 2024 Grammy for Best Americana Performance with Brandi Carlile – as well as new songs from an upcoming album in addition to hits she has penned for other artists including “Follow Your Arrow” for Kacey Musgraves and “Mama’s Broken Heart” for Miranda Lambert.

She spent a significant part of the evening alone onstage.

“That changes from night to night,” she explains. “I love that part of the show because it’s not in the set list. And I really go right there with my gut and what the audience is responding to, with what I’m feeling heavy on my heart to talk about. … It’s already stripped down, but then when it’s just myself and a guitar, that’s really stripped down.”

After years of songwriter nights and outings like the “Art of the Storyteller Tour” this spring, where she interviewed and traded songs with guests Rodney Crowell, Patty Griffin, Rosanne Cash, Robert Horn and Lori McKenna, Clark can read a room.

“A performance is 100%,” she says. “Some nights it’s 75% the artist and it’s 25% the audience. And other nights, I feel like they are doing 75% of the work and I’m doing 25%. And I find audiences do that right when you need them to. Like you’re at the end of a three or four-show run, and you just need a little bit of gas in the tank – they will give it to you right then.”

The consistent thread is the storytelling. It’s Clarks’ superpower.

She elevates the commonplace with humor and depth. Her songs combine wordplay with emotional punch. She sings about life in a small town as effortlessly as she does addiction or identity.

At The Pyrle, Clark performed a new song inspired by Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” with a message of inclusivity and acceptance with the lyrics: “It’s the light that we’re all looking for. The light above that golden door. And when you step foot onto that shore, it’s no more mine than it is yours.”

“That is a song because of where we are in the world, that I have to play each night,” admits Clark, who came up with the idea after seeing the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” “I don’t need to give a big explanation for it, but I just know that there’s something in that song that people need to hear, and so it’s my job to be the vehicle for that.”

A respected voice for a new generation of songwriters, Clark was recently named one of The New York Times’ “30 Greatest Living American Songwriters.” She appears on the list alongside Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, with The New York Times praising the trio as “Music Row pros par excellence, brilliant practitioners of the time-honored tradecraft: crisp hooks, witty wordplay, brisk storytelling, songs that click and whir like little machines” and goes on to call Clark, “a star recording artist in her own right.”