The buzz that surrounds the annual Key West Songwriters Festival isn’t limited to our 2- by 4-mile island, where locals and visitors pore over the schedule each year, buy tickets and make plans to see as many of the 200+ acts as possible in the five festival days, running now through May 5.
“Oh, it’s not just people in Key West who are talking about it. The buzz in Nashville starts every spring, with people everywhere asking, ‘Are you going to Key West this year? What days are you in Key West? Were you there last year? Did you see such-and-such?’ The Key West Songwriters Festival has quite the reputation in the best possible way,” said Nashville singer-songwriter Payton Taylor, who is here this week for her seventh songwriters festival.
“I was only 20 the first time I came down for songwriters,” she recalled, laughing at the informal “education” that the Key West music scene provided a young girl who had grown up in South Jersey, and convinced her parents to move to Nashville when she was 15 and intent on building a music career that was already showing promise.
“Now it’s a family tradition to come to Key West every spring,” she said, speaking with the Keys Weekly on April 29 from the backseat of a minivan next to her grandmother, Arlene Iannacone, while her mom, Denise Coccia, drove, and her sister, Taryn, rode shotgun.
Taylor will perform at the Lighthouse Inn and Hard Rock Cafe this week, and, like most other musicians and fans, will catch as many other sets as possible and make plans with other songwriters when they all return to Nashville.
“I co-write a lot of songs in Nashville, which I describe as a lot like speed dating — you bleed your heart out for a few hours with people you barely know and hope a good song comes out of it,” she said. “And the Key West Songwriters Festival provides a lot of opportunity to meet people and make plans to write together. Sometimes you’ll get back to Nashville and have these random Google calendar dates in your phone,” with only a foggy memory of the person you’re supposed to write with, she said laughing.
“But really, there’s a lot of cool connections to be made and they all lead back to Nashville,” said Taylor, who got a golden ticket to appear on American Idol when she was simply auditioning as an accompanist to her sister.
Her performance was featured on “Good Morning America,” Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, Taste of Country, and Sounds Like Nashville. Taylor, now 27, has opened for Charlie Daniels and was invited to the Grand Ole Opry stage by William Michael Morgan.
She credits her grandfather’s country music albums for her “old soul” style. She and her family made the move from South Jersey to Nashville in 2013, when Taylor was 15, but when asked about the best part of her hometown stomping grounds, she doesn’t hesitate to describe the Jersey Shore (which is nothing like the North Jersey Shore town depicted in the cringe-worthy reality show).
See Payton Taylor live in Key West at the Lighthouse Hotel on Friday, May 3 at 4 p.m. and at the Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday, May 4 at noon. Check out her music at PaytonTaylor.com. And for a complete festival schedule, visit keywestsongwritersfestival.com.
