The Second Story: A Writers' Night

Featuring Pat Alger, Josh Mirenda, Kyle Jacobs, and Chip Arnold. The Second Story is not a musical group or the name of a new band, but the title of a special evening of songwriter performances and their words and music paired and potentially reimagined in a unique way through the words of an author, poet or playwright.

Like many songwriter presentations, our “first story” will be the traditional round of performances and stories behind the songs. Our “second story” is a new concept that will interlace the talents of those songwriters with someone from a seemingly totally different realm of creativity.

On this night we’re weaving together these accomplished artists:

Pat Alger is one of the most acclaimed songwriters of our time, an inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Georgia Music Hall of Fame. With over 45 years of experience in a wide variety of genres, the list of artists delighted to get to cover his songs includes: The Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee, Peter, Paul & Mary, Nanci Griffith, Dolly Parton, Livingston & James Taylor, Don Williams and many more. As an artist he has recorded 3 solo albums, and as a writer he has had over 20 chart hits and 8 No.1’s including "The Thunder Rolls", "Unanswered Prayers", “That Summer” & “What She’s Doing Now” by Garth Brooks, "Small Town Saturday Night" by Hal Ketchum, “Goin’ Gone” and “She Came From Ft. Worth” by Kathy Mattea and "Like We Never Had A Broken Heart" by Trisha Yearwood.

Josh Mirenda was born and raised in Music City and grew up listening to music ranging from Dwight Yokam to Justin Timberlake. While studying at Belmont University, he began writing and singing songs as an escape from his classes. Soon his chemistry binder began to have more song lyrics than notes and his music started to gain not only the attention of his peers, but also Music Row. Since graduating, he has had songs recorded by Granger Smith, Tyler Farr, Michael Tyler, Jason Aldean, including the title track to his upcoming album “They Don’t Know”, and Dierks Bentley’s 2 week #1 smash single “Somewhere On A Beach”.

Kyle Jacobs is originally from Minnesota and achieved his first success as a writer with Kimberly Locke's Top 10 single "8th World Wonder." In 2007 he wrote what became the fastest rising single in the history of country music, Garth Brooks' “More Than A Memory”, which debuted at #1. Kyle also co-wrote the Top 10 singles “Still” by Tim McGraw and “Dust” by Eli Young Band and has had two songs featured in the ABC series, NASHVILLE. Kyle has also produced three #1 singles for Lee Brice, “Hard To Love”, “I Drive Your Truck”, and “Drinking Class” and had songs recorded by George Strait, Thompson Square, Gary Allan, Scotty McCreery, Trace Adkins, Kelly Clarkson, Randy Travis and many more. You’ll also recognize him for his featured roll on the CMT TV series, “I Love Kellie Pickler.” (Kellie is his wife!)

“Chip” (Henry O.) Arnold has been a professional actor, writer, and director in theatre, film, television, literature, and audio for more than forty-five years. Mr. Arnold was a founding member of The Advent Theatre, the first Equity theatre company in Nashville. His list of theatre credits is too long for this short treatise, but includes work with Studio Tenn, Nashville Rep, Nashville Children’s Theater and many more. He was given the award for Best Actor by The Tennessean in 2011 and the Best Actor honor by Martin Brady of the Nashville Scene for 2012. In films, he has worked with actors such as Sissy Spacek, Rip Torn and Jeff Bridges He had a guest-starring role in the CBS mini-series “If Tomorrow Comes,” and starred in the role of the apostle Paul in the Visual Bible’s production of “The Book of Acts.” He did a national tour of his original one-man show “The Light of the World” (the life of Jesus) as the opening act for Michael W. Smith’s “Acoustic Tour.” He wrote the screenplay for the only authorized film documentary on evangelist Billy Graham, “God’s Ambassador” for Gaither Film Productions narrated by David Frost and 156 episodes of the children’s show “Backyard Time” produced by the United Methodist Publishing House.

Sponsored by Jackson National Life