Caitlyn Smith: This ‘Girl Of Nashville’ Can Tour (Hotstar)

With the tour winding down, stadium dates with George Strait on the horizon and her much-anticipated album Supernova about to drop March 13, she’d definitely been in a groove. 

“You kind of saw the corona monster coming from afar, but it hit us like a ton of bricks,” the singer-songwriter tells Pollstar of the moment she realized her world was about to implode.  “We saw the NBA was canceled. Tom Hanks got it. It was like, ‘This thing is real,’ and it just felt so heavy. And then I got the call right after that, that the whole tour was canceled.”

There may not have been a worse day for an album release, as the entertainment industry roiled with mass cancellations and stay-at-home orders. But Smith says it was nearly the last thing on her mind – she had her family to keep safe and hunker down with.“But it was like a slow grieving process of a few months into lockdown and then it really started to hit me that we’d put two years of time and energy and hard work into this record that was completely heating up. It really felt devastating. It was traumatic for all of us.”

It was hard on WME Nashville Co-Head Jay Williams, too. 

“Caitlyn was in the middle of this Little Big Town tour when all this went down, and the record was timed perfectly with that,” Williams says. “But seeing her live is a big part of being converted to a Caitlyn Smith fan. It was tough. She wasn’t the only one that was fighting these challenges and pivoting from promoting a product on the road to figuring out how to create awareness.”

Smith and her team wasted little time regrouping back in Nashville, where Smith has lived for more than 10 years since chasing her dream there from her native Minnesota. They made plans to release a deluxe version of Supernova in September, re-imagining the track “I Can’t” as a duet with Old Dominion, and recording a cover of Coldplay’s “Fix You” as an Amazon Original release.

“We could debate whether [March 13, 2020] was the worst day to put out an album in the history of music or not,” Red Light Management’s Kevin Morris says of that time.”Obviously, we’ve navigated that and figured out ways to maximize the possibilities of what you can do without touring. She is such a special artist on every level and live, she’s just phenomenal. With her label [Monument Records] we’ve figured out how to keep the momentum going and keep her out there. Now, over a year later, she’s got a song on the charts. It’s been challenging, but I think that she’s continued to grow.”

With the album and single “I Can’t” getting a second lease on life, the question of how to bring a live experience to fans when there is no live performance to be had was at least partially solved with a radio station “tour.” 

“Out of the mess that was 2020, the re-release of Supernova was my silver lining,” Smith says. “Being able to have this track and this collaboration with Old Dominion was a little extra wind under my wings. That swung open the doors. It was my first chance to actually take something to country radio, which I’d never done before.” 

Her first performance for a live audience of sorts was at Charleston, S.C., radio station WCKN-FM, which invited her to perform and tell stories on-air. 

“It’s been a decade of a wild year, but I had my first show back in Charleston,” Smith explains. “We did a radio event and it was magical, to say the least. Just getting everyone in the same room listening to music, you could feel the energy and excitement and relief and gratitude all over the room. So even though it was a tiny little show, it felt so great.”

Such was the experience that Smith and her team developed the idea of taking the radio show on the road.

Dubbed the “I Can’t … Tour Tour,” Smith rented shuttered venues like Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, Vinyl in Atlanta, The Rustic in Houston, Knuckleheads in Kansas City, Mo., and others for a day and played for country radio programmers and venue staff, adding a livestreaming component for fans. 

It was a stroke of genius. Smith, who has written hits for many others across genres including Trisha Yearwood (“Every Girl In This Town”), Miley Cyrus (“High”), Gabby Barrett (“Goldmine”), Lindsay Ell (“Space”), Meghan Trainor and John Legend (“Like I’m Gonna Lose You”) and Garth Brooks (“Tacoma”), it’s her collaboration with old friends and tourmates Old Dominion that supercharged her breakthrough to country radio. The shows for programmers only reinforced what they were already hearing.

“It’s great to see the country format and some of these country tours really pick her up and support her, especially with this song being a radio hit, because there’s a part of country that’s kind of left-of-center, sort of Americana, Triple-A, and she kind of fits in that,” Williams says. “But she’s leaning more into country now, which is great because I think there’s nobody in her lane that does what she does so well.”

Another crucial pandemic-era showcase for Smith was her performance of “I Can’t” for the acclaimed #SaveOurStages Fest benefitting the National Independent Venue Association.

The song lent itself perfectly to the occasion and Smith shot a video with Old Dominion depicting an imaginary shuttered music venue of the future. In addition to helping NIVA raise much-needed funds, the video has been seen by more than 20 million viewers to date.

Another special project for Smith is her ongoing “Girls of Nashville” series showcasing female songwriters who are often overlooked in Music City. Originally taking place at 3rd & Lindsley beginning in 2016, the series has moved to City Winery where its next performance on May 25, featuring Heather Morgan and Mags Duval, has already sold out 

Over the 12 “Girls of Nashville” shows reported to Pollstar, the series has moved 3,935 tickets and grossed $67,604.

Both the NIVA performance and “Girls of Nashville” are labors of love for Smith, who has made a name for herself as someone who gives back to her music community.

“One of the great things about her is, the longer you’re in this business, you really want to surround yourself and work with people that are awesome people,” Williams says. “People that work hard, that know who they are, that are super kind and understanding. She’s all of them. She’s one of the most lovely human beings that I’ve been around, and that rubs off on everybody that she’s around, whether it’s backstage at the show or her team that we work with. She really drives everything because she’s worked so hard and she’s so fantastic.”

Shows are being rescheduled, including the remaining Little Big Town tour dates and, as Pollstar goes to press, the first of her opening dates for George Strait has been announced at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Aug. 13-14.

It won’t be Smith’s first time opening for Strait; she opened for the King in front of 50,513 fans at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., Aug. 17, 2019, in what she calls a “surreal” experience.

“I think the biggest trip was that George actually was watching our entire set,” she reminisces. “More of a trip than playing in front of our first stadium was seeing the King in the corner of my eye when I was playing. It was all like a dream.” 

After the nightmare that was 2020, it’s a dream she’s ready to get back to.