Homecoming for down-home songwriter

Country music fans have their favorite singers: Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Gretchen Wilson and Brad Paisley, to name a few. But behind those famous faces and familiar voices stands songwriter and former Portsmouth resident Tim Nichols.

He'll play Saturday at Norfolk's Granby Theater as part of the BMI Songwriter Series, along with Jeffrey Steele, who's a judge on NBC's "Nashville Star," and host Bob DiPiero, who penned George Strait's "Blue Clear Sky."

"Those three are your iconic Hall of Fame writers," said Josh Pegram, calling from his Brentwood, Tenn., home. Pegram, 35, who also grew up in Chesapeake and Portsmouth, is founder of Nashville-based Kick Drum Media. On a visit to Hampton Roads earlier this summer, he was "blown away by the attention to detail" of the renovated theater on Granby Street. He teamed up with Broadcast Music Inc., which collects and distributes royalties for songwriters, along with the trio of songwriters and Granby Theater to bring the songwriter series to Norfolk. Pegram had seen Nichols at various award shows but didn't really know him. Although both men had lived in Hampton Roads, it wasn't until they began talking about the series that Pegram discovered Nichols was from Portsmouth.

"That's when it got much more exciting," said Pegram.

Nichols attended Manor (now Woodrow Wilson) High School around 1973.

"I'm so looking forward to the show on the 18th because it's been probably 35 years since I've seen some of those folks," he said, speaking from Nashville, where he has lived and worked since 1980. Nichols, who still has family in Portsmouth, said he has been in contact with his former peers through Facebook. Nichols said he was bitten by the songwriting bug in the mid-1980s.

"I want to be able to write a song that is relatable to everyone. Just like 'Heads Carolina, Tails California,' a song I did for Jo Dee Messina about packing up and getting out of town. Or 'Live Like You Were Dying,' " he said of the Tim McGraw song that he co-wrote in 2004, and for which he won a Grammy in 2005. "The song basically won every award it was nominated for."

Artists usually record the songs as written, Nichols said.

"Now, there are some instances they may want a lyric change, or if they are in the studio they may make just a slight variation on the melody or change a note or two, but it's not anything where they would want credit."

"As writers we feel that this is what the song is about, this is what we want the song to say."

Since 1986, Nichols has co-written more than 1,500 songs.

"I don't really keep up with how many songs I write in a year, because I don't really want to know from year to year. I just figure however many I write that year, that's how many I was supposed to write."

Nichols received his first BMI award in 1989 with Keith Whitley's "I'm Over You." "It was kind of a dream come true. It served as validation for one thing and motivation for another."

His latest hit, "The Man I Want to Be," sung by Chris Young, stayed at No. 1 for three weeks.

Watching one of his songs move up the charts "never gets old," said the 52-year-old singer/songwriter. "That's been my life for 24 years."

Patty Jenkins, (757) 446-2298, patty.jenkins@pilotonline.com