by Bob McKillop

Rod Picott grew up in South Berwick, Maine, but has lived in Nashville for the last 14 years.  You can hear that acquired drawl in his voice, just a touch, and it comes and goes.  His journey to and through Nashville changed him and changed his approach to music as a vocation.  He has arrived at a place where he can sustain himself and enjoy the work in ways that he did not expect early on in his life.

From playing garage bands in junior high school with Slaid Cleaves, Rod moved on to regional rock bands, most memorably “Big Rain”.  He began to learn the nuts and bolts of taking control of the room as a front man, and how to be on stage.  He says it was a real apprenticeship as a performer.  “It was the process of learning how to put music together, how to present it, how to be on stage, how to assemble songs and arrange songs.  The things that I learned in those bands that were really valuable were the important elements of recording, the process of recording, how that works.  And just getting comfortable on stage; I had a long learning process of how to run the room, how to be a front man, and command the stage.  Even in folk music, you have to learn how to command the stage when you get up there.”

Rod had sort of an epiphany in Colorado, when he took a songwriting seminar with Stephen Allen Davis, and discovered that there was actually a job called “songwriting”.  He moved to Nashville, and began to work very hard at learning the craft.  “I was sort of trying to reinvent how I wrote. I had grown up listening to rock bands, and I found out that, when I wanted to play by myself with a guitar, a lot of what I had learned about writing songs for a band didn’t apply anymore.  I worked really hard at teaching myself how to write for a guy standing there with a guitar, which is very different. And that’s what I went to Nashville to do.”

Picott’s move to Nashville was pretty much one big “cold call”.  He had never been there, and didn’t know anyone.  He found a place to live, found a construction job, and began to go to open mics and song critiques, and started pitching songs to publishing firms.  He came close to a publishing deal several times, but kept hearing that, while he was a very good writer, his songs were not “pop” enough.  That didn’t bother him so much, since that wasn’t what he was trying to do.  But along with that feedback came the advice that he heard many times: that he should make his own album.  “Eventually, I heard it so many times, I went ahead and did it, and ended up in this whole other career, unintentionally.  It’s been wonderful!”

That first album was “Tiger Tom Dixon’s Blues “, and came out in 2000.  Since then, Rod has steadily built an audience across this country, and a couple of foreign markets, such as the UK and Italy.  “That overseas audience has sort of built slowly over the past six years; I’ve gotten some fair airplay on the BBC, and on Dutch radio, and in Italy.  It’s nurtured this sort of cult audience, mostly fifty year old guys in wooly sweaters with beards!”, he laughs.  “But that’s what that Americana audience is, and I love them, they are just great people. They love songs, and it doesn’t have to be slick, they’ll take it as rough as you want to give it to them.  It’s a great audience to have!”

Since that debut album, Picott has released three more studio albums, plus a CD of live performances.  He also has co-writtten several songs with Slaid Cleaves, and has co-produced Cleaves’ most recent album on Rounder Records, “Unsung”.   Rod co-produced his own last two releases, “Girl from Arkansas” and “Summerbirds”, with David Henry.  While his songwriting and performing have reached a high level of acclaim, he speaks as if producing has become an important new outlet for his creativity.  “I love it – it’s particularly fun to do for somebody else, because you get to sit in the creative seat without being in the hot seat as a performer. And you get to nurture somebody else’s vision, and help that along. It’s a lot of fun!”  It is clear that Rod would love to do more of that work.

Rod tours different regions of the country, and overseas, on a regular schedule.  He’s on his way to the northeast, including The Bull Run in Shirley, MA, and The Stone Church, in Newmarket, NH.  Of most interest to Mainers, of course, is his appearance at One Longfellow Square on April 18 with Amanda Shires.   Come out and see a native Mainer who as made good, and who makes great music!