Nashville TV Show to Feature Music From Livermore Artist

A taste of Livermore will be featured in tonight's television episode of ABC's Nashville.

A song written and performed by local musician James Nagel will be used during a scene in the show.

We asked Nagel, 26, to provide a recap on how the opportunity came about. Here's his response sent via e-mail:

Yes, one of my songs will be featured on tonight's episode of Nashville, the new hit tv music-drama from ABC. It will be used during a scene when one of the main characters, Deacon, is thrown a surprise birthday party. 

The story is a crazy one. I am a professional in-house songwriter for a publishing company in LA and they contact me to do jobs on spec for them, usually with very quick turn-arounds. Last Friday I was heading out the door to a gig at Swirl in Livermore when my publisher called me saying that the music supervisor for Nashville contacted her with an urgent request. They needed a very specific birthday song for their next episode and weren't getting anything they liked. My publisher said I would need to have the song to her by Saturday morning of the next day so the producers could start mixing it to picture.

So basically, I went out and played a two-hour gig, came home around 12 and spent the whole night writing and producing the track for ABC. When I delivered it Saturday morning my publisher sent it as urgent to ABC's production team. They auditioned it to picture Sunday, and Monday morning I heard back that they loved the track and I got the cut.

Typically that is how these things go, very last minute, but Nashville in particular is a very tough show to get music placed on right now because it's such a music-centered drama and they typically use songs from well-known established writers in the scene. It's been very humbling for me to be included in their production. 

All to say, it's been a great week. This has been a huge win-win for my publishing company and I, and the opportunities are only gonna get better from here!

To hear the song and for more information on Nagel, visit www.jamesnagel.com.