The Peach Pickers Plan Third Annual Georgia on My Mind Concert
An annual celebration of Georgia music is coming back to Nashville in 2016: The Peach Pickers' third annual Georgia on My Mind concert is set to take place at the Ryman Auditorium in May.
The yearly concert is scheduled for May 10, with the lineup of Georgia-born artists and songwriters to be announced in the spring. The 2016 event will feature a special tribute to Otis Redding, a native of Dawson, Ga., and, as always, benefit the Georgia Music Foundation, which supports music preservation, education and outreach programs in the state.
Ben Hayslip, Dallas Davidson and Rhett Akins, collectively known as the Peach Pickers, are the songwriting team behind some of country music's biggest hits, including Luke Bryan's "I Don't Want This Night to End," Blake Shelton's "All About Tonight" and Joe Nichols' "Gimmie That Girl," among others. The three men all hail from the Peach State and were each deeply influenced by their home state's music scene, using that shared influence to help them write hit after hit after hit.
"Georgia has such a different mix of music ... And so, I think when you just hear all of that music constantly, you can’t help but love all of it, and it comes out in your music, and I think that’s why the Peach Pickers have been successful about the last eight years," Akins tells The Boot. "We've been able to keep up with whatever direction country music is turning because we grew up loving all that music anyway. If country’s hip-hop for a little while, we can do that because we love hip-hop. If country’s bluesy for a little while, we can do that because we love blues. We just love all types of music, so we can kind of twist and turn whichever way the wind’s blowing."
Adds Davidson, "I think we write songs that resonate well with the rest of the country."
Tickets for Georgia on My Mind 2016 are available through Ticketmaster.