Ashley Monroe and Charlie Worsham take Dear Nashville to the Station Inn

Fresh off a short East Coast run, Monroe plays the Gulch's 175-capacity bluegrass room on Monday, Nov. 16, with Worsham along.

There are bigger stages in Nashville than the one at the Station Inn. There are almost none that feel more like home. On Monday, Nov. 16, Ashley Monroe plays the Gulch's storied bluegrass room with Charlie Worsham, and for a songwriter who just made a record called *Dear Nashville*, it is hard to picture a better address.

The details: the show starts at 8 p.m., tickets are $35 through Eventbrite, and the Station Inn holds 175. That is a very small room for an artist of Monroe's standing, and on a Monday, with a hometown crowd that knows her catalog cold, it is not going to sit around unsold.

The record is the reason to go. Monroe surprise-released *Dear Nashville* in late March, an eight-song concept album she co-wrote and co-produced with Luke Laird, as FemMusic and antiMusic reported around its single "Getting Out of Hand." She spent the spring opening for Stephen Wilson Jr. on his sold-out Gary the Torch Tour, which began April 17 in Kansas City.

Then came the fall plan. In August, Pollstar reported that Monroe and Worsham would team up for a short November run, starting at The Birchmere outside Washington, D.C., on Nov. 4 and New York on Nov. 5, with Chicago to follow. Annapolis came in on Nov. 7, and Chicago lands Nov. 12. The Station Inn date brings the pairing home to the town both of them work out of.

A Nashville album, played in one of Nashville's most Nashville rooms.

If you need the long view: Monroe's résumé, laid out on Wikipedia, runs from her solo records through Pistol Annies, her trio with Miranda Lambert and Angaleena Presley, and Grammy-nominated work like *The Blade*, which got a 10th-anniversary reissue, per Country in the UK. Worsham, a picker as much as a singer, makes for a natural partner in a room built around acoustic instruments.

That room deserves its own paragraph. The Station Inn is Nashville's best-known home for bluegrass, a modest building in the Gulch that has outlasted the towers going up around it, as described on its own site and in Wikipedia's entry. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has honored the venue for its place in the city's music history, uDiscover Music reported. It is a place where the music comes first and the stage sits close enough to see fingers on frets.

Put a Monroe record with Worsham's guitar in that space and you have the rare Nashville night that is genuinely about the songs, not the spectacle.

A practical tip: the Station Inn is small and the crowd tends to arrive early, so leave time for parking in the Gulch, which is never as easy as it should be.

Monday nights in this town can be quiet. This one will not be. Grab tickets on Eventbrite and get there early.

Sources: Ashley Monroe And Charlie Worsham Announce Joint November Tour Dates (Pollstar) (news.pollstar.com); Ashley Monroe: Getting Out of Hand (FemMusic) (femmusic.com); Watch Ashley Monroe's 'Getting Out of Hand' video (antiMusic) (musicpressbox.antimusic.com); Ashley Monroe (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Ashley Monroe releases 10th anniversary edition of The Blade (Country in the UK) (countryintheuk.com); Station Inn (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Station Inn – Welcome to the Gulch (stationinn.com); Country Music Hall Of Fame And Museum Honors Nashville's Station Inn (uDiscover Music) (udiscovermusic.com); Tickets (Eventbrite) (eventbrite.com); Ashley Monroe at Station Inn (JamBase) (jambase.com)