Up Close and Personal- Southern Kentucky’s Unique Atmosphere for Musicians and Fans

Depending on who you ask around town, Bowling Green, Kentucky offers different reasons to call it home. To car enthusiasts, it’s a hotspot with an active drag racing venue and home to the Chevrolet Corvette manufacturing plant and museum. To those who enjoy the outdoors, it contains an exciting underground cave system, part of which hides underneath the city at Lost River Cave (complete with hiking trails too). There’s also Mammoth Cave National Park right up the road. The melomaniac also finds it a spot to call home for more than one reason, and the wider area gives artists an up close experience with fans unlike what they would find in larger cities.

Freshly relaunched with Brian Mefford and Sean Stevens in 2023, White Squirrel Brewery sought to recapture the same crowd that they loved and loved them back. They painted a vision of crafting originally brewed recipes for their passionate followers and giving a “community living room” of sorts for everyone to enjoy. Situated on the back end of their space on 302 State Street was a stage for performing. “We didn’t really plan on keeping the stage, honestly.” Mefford claims. What was once on the outskirts of the business blueprint and quite literally the building, has now less than one year later become an integral part of their identity. Mefford continued, “There are outfits from Nashville that are tired of having to reach booking agents in Chicago just to play shows and practice, so we filled the gap.”

Less than two months after reopening, the brewery hosted Bowling Green’s own Nappy Roots as guests for an exclusive batch together with their brewery, Atlantucky. The bandmates hung around White Squirrel with customers the entire evening, chatting and taking pictures, before opening up the hops and beginning the brewing process for their original, collaborated recipe. About the same time they visited Bowling Green, the music group had just released their ninth studio album entitled “Nappy4Life”.

Their single, “Hands of Time” lead the album into it’s release. With a catchy background beat, the song speaks of perseverance and the tests of life with the hook “Keep on movin’, don’t stop no...” The album ends with “The Intersection” where member Fish Scales leads and opens up about his kidnapping just outside their Atlantucky Brewery in 2022. “Almost died over cash, 30 bucks to be exact”. He continues “Life is good if you living, wish I could share this feelin’, Just giving thanks to what’s given”. It’s that same sentiment you’ll find throughout the whole record. Atlantucky Brewery just recently celebrated it’s second anniversary in February.

Not simply a producer of great talent, the music scene around town also attracts it. White Squirrel Brewery will host international platinum-selling singer and songwriter Eric Hutchinson on Friday, May 3rd. Hutchinson has toured with artists Kelly Clarkson, Jason Mraz, and OneRepublic, among others. He shared of the night ahead, “I’ve never played Bowling Green and when I heard about the White Squirrel Brewery, it sounded like the perfect place to kick off my ‘Best of Eric Hutchinson’ Tour! I’m excited to share my most popular songs with the audience, tell some jokes, have some laughs and enjoy the night in Kentucky.” Tickets to his show will be linked to the bottom of this article.

The story isn’t over, however. Bowling Green’s music scene is still making it’s mark on the industry with the city’s native Cage The Elephant’s newest album, Neon Pill, set to release May 17th by RCA Records. Two singles from the album have been released already with “Neon Pill” and “Good Time”. The former opens in a steady guitar sound with the lines, “It takes one to know one, back at it again” - a greeting faithful listeners will be excited to hear. It’s a foreshadowing of things to come, really, as the band is hitting the road with a tour around North America as well.

Photo of The Grove Outdoor Venue & Drinkery by Lucas Hughes

Just a short drive outside town to Glasgow, Kentucky and you will be lead to The Grove Outdoor Venue & Drinkery. During the Covid-19 shutdown, Jason Kuykendall went to work clearing an area in the middle of town to bring his vision of an all-inclusive music and events venue in a safe, outdoor, open-air facility to life. Opening in October 2020, this venue has applications for all kinds of events from dinners to weddings and parties. It is an intimate venue - boasting two connected treehouses, three table-top bars, bench-swing and roundtable seating, with room for you to pop out a lawn chair around the stone fire pits if you wish.

Saturday, April 20th, The Grove was host to bands Town Mountain and Brother Smith - their first music performance of the season. This Folk/Americana/Bluegrass duo brought a great show to the area for the three hour set.

Brother Smith opened the stage surrounded by stringed lights to a packed yard. Wesley and Aaron Smith (the brothers behind the name) strung out a mix of country, southern rock, with a little blues sound added in. Afterwards, Town Mountain stepped up with a catchy strum of all their instruments at once, with a groove locals could easily stay in time with. Looking around while photographing, I found the brothers Aaron and Wesley among the crowd enjoying Town Mountain’s set as well. It’s this kind of personal connection for fans and artists you won’t find in a big city.

There was an all too familiar Miguel’s Pizza hoodie on someone among the listeners. It’s an unmistakable, local spot in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge area. Kelly Jones from Bardstown was wearing it, and he shared an enjoyable sentiment on the evening. “I booked a local hotel and walked to the venue. This is the ideal place to catch a band you like!” he insisted. Right after those words left his mouth, Philip Barker of Town Mountain let out the opening howl to “Law Dog”. Jones and I looked at each other and knew the tune right away. As the evening ended, Aaron Smith could be seen at the merchandise booth chatting with concert-goers.

To get a bead on the local music scene around town, you don’t have to travel very far. There are plenty of talents giving soundcheck in some way or another at the local hangouts, and in some instances the fame comes to you. Southern Kentucky isn’t far from Nashville and “Music City” is reaching out and finding success in more ways than one with intimate atmospheres for both fans and artists alike. I look forward to see who steps on stage next!