Post Malone joins Lainey Wilson, Ashley Gorley, for surprise Nashville Bluebird Cafe set

Something powerful loomed in the shadow of Green Hills Mall on Monday night, between the notes of songs that, given global streaming's grip on the music industry, countless country fans know by heart.

If you asked Post Malone or Lainey Wilson, they weren't the most prominent stars performing at Malone's Monday night, exclusive debut songwriting round at the Bluebird Cafe. That's saying something, given that the former is an over 20-time diamond-selling singles artist and the latter is the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association's reigning Entertainer of the Year.

No, it was songwriter Ashley Gorley, the pop country and R&B enthusiast who had a hand in writing an unprecedented 12 No. 1 hits during 2023 (including "She Had Me At Heads Carolina," recorded by Cole Swindell, "Last Night," recorded by Morgan Wallen, "World on Fire," recorded by Nate Smith and "TRUCK BED," recorded by HARDY). For about half of the 15 years he has been penning hit singles, he's written songs that have topped the country music charts.

Malone defines America's acceptance of country music

Malone? It wasn't his guitar skills, raw tenor, or hearing acoustic versions of his half-decade-old hits "Circles" and a solo take on Swae Lee "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" film collaboration "Sunflower" that dominated the night.

Yes, he's played the ACM and CMA Awards, Bonnaroo, CMA and Stagecoach Festivals — alongside Reba McEntire, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton and Billy Strings.

Playing the Bluebird is a rite of passage for any rising country star. No stage — or rather setting in the round, in front of 90 densely-packed attendees — is as crucial for an artists looking to knock a performance out of the park.

Malone didn't exactly do that.

Still, Malone embodied the spirit and vibe of country music's strengthening grip upon America's cultural zeitgeist.

Throughout the evening, he appeared filled with childlike glee. His earnest yet light-hearted entrance into country music shows that there isn't a need to dance well, or even be that gifted of a vocalist, to represent, the genre's expanding tent.

Malone adapting to Nashville's community

"Lainey! What are you doing?!?!?"

Malone was jokingly stunned that she'd ceded her seat in the Bluebird's circle to ERNEST, who was present and collaborated with Wilson on their "Nashville, Tennessee" album duet "I Would If I Could," then humorously played a dive bar-ready take on George Jones' 1981-released "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)."

"Post, I'm here; I'll handle the background vocals," Wilson smiled.

"If drinking don't kill me, her memory will / I can't hold out much longer, the way that I feel / With the blood from my body, I could start my own still / But if drinking don't kill me, her memory will," the duo warbled.

Jones' catalog is peerless in its examination of the fractures and frailties of the human condition.

Thus, it was apropos that an artist who has consistently been one of the world's top-selling artists for a decade invoked "The Possum" as he wraps himself in Nashville's music scene.

'Thank you for letting me (into country music)'

"Man, after all this time, I didn't know you could play the keyboard," noted Malone while sipping a second "white tea" shot comprised of vodka, peach schnapps, sour mix and lemon-lime soda.

Yes, Gorley is among those with whom Malone has acquainted himself during frequent trips to Music City in the past year. That group also includes Wilson, Paisely, Combs, Shelton, ERNEST and Jelly Roll.

"You're eight glasses of water in. Watch out!" Malone joked at Gorley, who maintained his sobriety while playing previously-mentioned chart-toppers like "She Had Me At Heads Carolina," "World On Fire," Chris Stapleton's "You Should Probably Leave" and Wallen's "Sand In My Boots."

Similarly, Malone shyly played after hearing Wilson open by performing "Wildflowers and Wild Horses."

However, after three rounds, he was smiling and laughing.

"This is the most fun I've had in f***ing forever," he said. "Thank you for letting me (into country music) — I'm honored and proud to be here."

'I Had Some Help'

He opened with "Feeling Whitney," an unreleased song about a night he spent in Houston with friends while drinking a mix of prescription-grade codeine cough syrup with promethazine anti-histamine and Sprite. For a quarter-century, no fewer than three generations of Houston and Texas-based rappers have often ingested the potentially lethal concoction.

Sure, Malone is capable of making pop-ready country, pop and rap music. But he also represents an outlaw culture.

"Circles" and "Sunflower," as noted, arrived rawer than the way they soared up streaming charts. However, it started a politely humorous session of jabs between chart-topper Gorley and Malone. Though the mainstream country's most successful wordsmith of the past decade, Gorley sang and played the keyboard along with Malone's hits.

As far as "I Had Some Help?" Malone offered, relatively simply, that it's a song about "drinking."

As the Bluebird, in unison, sang the song's chorus together, it was evident that, at least those crammed into the famed West Nashville venue were willing to hear out Post Malone case to become a bona fide country star.

SETLIST

• Ashley Gorley — She Had Me At Heads Carolina

• Lainey Wilson — Wildflowers and Wild Horses

• Post Malone — Feeling Whitney

• Ashley Gorley — World On Fire

• Lainey Wilson — 4 x 4 x You

• Post Malone — Circles

• Ashley Gorley — You Should Probably Leave

• Lainey Wilson (with ERNEST) — I Would If I Could

• Post Malone — Sunflower

• Ashley Gorley — Sand In My Boots

• Lainey Wilson — Watermelon Moonshine

• Post Malone — I Had Some Help

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Post Malone joins Lainey Wilson, Ashley Gorley, for surprise Nashville Bluebird Cafe set