Music
Country Fresh: Whiskey Jam
For years, the music series Whiskey Jam has championed Nashville’s newest sounds.
Every night in downtown Nashville, a swell of live music pours out of the crowded bars on Broadway Street. Some honky tonks embrace the early days, where cover bands play “White Lightning”—a rockabilly hit made famous by country artist George Jones in 1959—on steady rotation. Then there are the celebrity-backed watering holes that lure in boot-clad tourists with Dolly Parton standards. Workin’ 9 to 5? What a way to spend vacation. But for those seeking discovery, there’s a beacon of new music tucked inside a gastropub near the corner of Fourth Avenue.
Every Monday and Thursday night on a small stage on the second floor of Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row, aspiring artists showcase original tunes to a curious crowd. As patrons down cold beer and stiff shots, a bearded man sporting a baseball cap, polo shirt, shorts and running shoes jumps up to the stage and introduces each group with a childlike giddiness. “Golly! he exclaims. “The bands tonight are really, really incredible. I’m fired up!”
The unassuming host is Ward Guenther, Nashville’s ultimate hype man. As the co-founder of Whiskey Jam, Guenther has spent the past decade giving some of the freshest talent in the country music scene an outlet to perform, often at a moment when they’re on the cusp of major success. Some of today’s brightest stars— including Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson and countless others—have graced the tiny stage, and since the music series launched in 2011, nearly 400 No. 1 singles have been written or performed by Whiskey Jam alums. And this October, Whiskey Jam will host Red Bull Jukebox, where Shaboozey, Brothers Osborne, Priscilla Block, Tucker Wetmore, Breland—and other artists—are slated to perform in Nashville. If anyone can claim he has his finger on the pulse of country music, it’s Ward Guenther.
Of course, it wasn’t always that way. Before Guenther became an arbiter of taste in Music City, he was slinging drinks at a bar while chasing his own dreams of becoming a musician.
“Imovedhereaftercollegeanddidn’tknowanybody,” says Guenther, who graduated from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 2003. “I went out every single night to a different music event, and I completely fell in love with the social scene in Nashville and the friends you could make.”
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Over the years, Guenther’s network grew as he hustled to make it as an artist. He wrote songs, signed up at open mic nights, played in cover bands and toured as a backing musician. During his early years in Nashville, he noticed there was a chasm between the more subdued nature of songwriter nights, where people hung on every word, and and the higher engery of a band showcase or an informal jam with friends. What if there was a way to marry those elements and make it really fun?
The answer came through a fortuitous text message, in a tale that has become Whiskey Jam legend. Guenther was about to go to bed when a friend pinged him, Let’s go play some music. It was a rare night off, but Guenther rallied. This was the the reason he moved to Nashville.
“We just played for fun,” Guenther says. “It wasn’t a gig. It was just for the joy—the purest night of sharing a good time with your friends.”
Luke Combs wowed crowds on stage at Whiskey Jam.
© Jason Myers
The next day, Guenther sent out a tweet thanking everyone for coming out for the “first-ever Whiskey Jam.” Immediately, his friend and first business partner, Josh Hoge, recognized the potential of creating an atmosphere where anybody could come play, discover new music, meet new people and have fun. Hoping to recreate the same ambience, they texted everyone they knew—about 250 songwriters, signed artists, session and touring musicians—and invited them to come out and jam. And everyone showed up, including Brett Eldredge, Chris Young, and Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood of Lady A.
“Immediately out of the gate, it’s funny how effective it was at filling that gap,” Guenther says.
As the years have passed, Whiskey Jam has become its own ecosystem. Every Monday and Thursday night, Guenther books a handful of acts to perform. Some bands come to him through a submission form, while others come through suggestions from friends. Every lineup is different by design. “I’m very conscious of it not being
I want to keep the real nucleus of what we do the priority— keeping the magic of music in its purest form.
‘Ward Guenther’s Whiskey Jam,’” he says. “I try to book bands that I don’t know. It’s opened my eyes to new bands, and I think it’s the best approach to attract the most people in the widest variety of fans.”
“I can say on a regular basis, you’re probably not going to like everything you see, but you’re going to like a bunch of it,” Guenther continues. “It’s like a sampler platter, and it’s great for this generation. You’re not going to a two- and-a-half-hour concert of one band; you’re getting a 24-song mixtape. It’s all different. And in a Nashville setting, it’s hard to have a bad time.”
Now, 13 years and nearly 1,000 shows later, Whiskey Jam remains the same at its core. During one Thursday night show in late June, the lineup includes acts from all over the country, including Rodell Duff from Houston, and the Deltaz, a brother duo from Los Angeles. “I don’t expect you to know half of these bands,” Guenther tells the crowd. “But that’s the beauty of it.”
It’s also not unusual for bigger names to make an appearance at Whiskey Jam—Keith Urban, Randy Travis and Chris Stapleton have all dropped in. Raspy-voiced rocker Melissa Etheridge reached out when she wanted a real Nashville experience. Even NFL legend Peyton Manning hopped onstage to sing his rendition of “Rocky Top” while Guenther strummed along on his guitar.
There have been missed connections, too. One time, an artist opening up for Justin Bieber sent him a direct message on Twitter, but that week’s lineup was stacked and Guenther didn’t recognize who it was. His name was Post Malone. “That is my biggest regret,” Guenther says, emphasizing that Post has an open invitation to come to Whiskey Jam whenver he’s available.
“Through the years we’ve had so many amazing artists,” Guenther says. “But over and over again, I get most excited about these random occassions where an artist will play and you’ll see a different reaction in the crowd. We saw that with Luke Combs.” Indeed, before Combs had multiple No. 1 hits on the country charts, he submitted to play Whiskey Jam and wowed the audience with his soulful appearances.
Other artists swing by just to watch. Shaboozey, who at press time topped the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country charts with his summer smash “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” has stood in the crowd on several occassions. “He’s drawn to our event as a cool place to hang and meet people,” Guenther says. “We were trying to figure out a time for him to come play, and then he blew up.”
Thankfully, Guenther has found a bigger stage. On October 2, Shaboozey will be joining the lineup at Red Bull Jukebox at the 6,800-capacity Ascend Ampitheater in Nashville. “I’m so glad we’re having this event where we can bring him into the Whiskey Jam family, where we can mix together what he stands for and what we stand for,” Guenther says. “As Nashville evolves, I want to make sure we grow and serve more people, get more music to more ears, and keep the real nucleus of what we do the priority— keeping the magic of music in its purest form.”
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