Red Wheel Songwriting Series Concludes for the Season

It’s not abnormal for The Factory at Franklin to be busy on a Saturday night, with long lines of patrons trailing outside of the sugar-sweet smelling Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams or football games watched over cheese-pulls at Slim and Husky’s.

Amid the hustle and bustle of a 7:30 p.m. dinner rush at The Factory at Franklin, several patrons made their way into the quiet seclusion of the Turner Theatre, located right smack in the middle of a wide variety of restaurants and eateries, to watch an intimate, personal performance put on by the Red Wheel Songwriting Series. 

Inside the black box theatre-turned-songwriting-venue, several round tables topped with red-bulbed lamps surround a circular stage smack in the middle of the room. Kind of like the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, famous for its writers in the round that literally sit in a circle in the middle of the room, chairs and tables cluttered around them in an arena-like fashion, The Red Wheel Songwriting Series has a similar approach to its writers’ rounds. 

However, what makes this songwriting series special is that the writers sit on a stage that slowly rotates as some of country music’s most celebrated songwriters perform stripped-down, personal performances of the songs they wrote for big-name artists. 

The series made its debut June 2025 and has since hosted a slew of artists and writers such as Mae Estes, Brigit Tatum, Rob Hatch, Lee Brice and more. This past Saturday, The Red Wheel Songwriting Series hosted its last event of the season, with writers Jim McCormick, Danny Myrick and Megan Linville taking the stage with just their voices, a little something from the bar and an acoustic guitar. 

McCormick, a New Orleans native, brought a taste of Louisiana to the circular stage, telling stories about, as a Louisiana man, wanting to get a song cut by another Los Angeles native, Tim McGraw. He’d written the song “Louisiana,” and pitched it to McGraw multiple times, which the country megastar declined to cut up until hurricane season made McGraw interested. 

“Sometimes it takes a storm to get a song recorded,” McCormick said into the microphone, before beginning to pour the known words “Maybe it was a dream last night / Or looking into my daughter’s eyes / But my heart was sinking” in a country croon over the audience of round-topped tables. 

Stories spilled as the night went on. Linville — dressed in an all-black western-chic ensemble complete with glittery knee-high cowboy boots, pinstriped vest and black jeans — oozed authenticity.

One song that struck a chord with the audience, “In a Trailer” told the story of a woman she knew who lived in a retirement park trailer home after Hurricane Ian. The song felt personal and honest, and relatable like something that could happen to anyone. 

As she hammered the chords to the song cut by her friend Cassidy Daniels, strong vocals rang out the lyrics “But I’ve got a wrap around porch and some cotton curtains / He’s given me more than I’m deserving / Sunset’s stripping down like honey / We’re richer than most folks with money.”

The audience sat mesmerized by Linville’s words.

In between hearty laughter and hazy, drunk, almost-memories shared at a huge, dingy, party-hall on the panhandle called “Florabama,” Danny Myrick talked about nights spent partying down in Orange Beach with fellow songwriter Gable Bradley. Myrick told of a conveniently-placed Waffle House right beside the FloraBama, where he and Bradley went to eat after a 3:30 a.m.

“We stumbled over to the Waffle House, and we sat down in a blur. We really can’t order quick enough,” he says to the audience. “We look over to the side, a couple of tables over, and there’s a server at this table, and she’s incredibly striking for a 4 a.m. Waffle House server. And Gabel and I were like: ‘What’s her story?’” 

They never talked to her, but they named her Madeline and wrote her story, which became a song Bradley cut in 2024. Myrick played it as the Red Wheel stage slowly turned, rough voice and acoustic chords making poetry out of an unknown Waffle House legend. 

The last Red Wheel Songwriting Series closed with personality, a blurry night of laughter, tears and hearty truth told by writers McCormick, Myrick and Linville. Until next summer, the Turner Theatre will become a black box theatre space, where an impressive lineup of theatrical shows will perform into 2027.