Friday, March 18, 2016
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
The American Made Country Music Songwriters Series will return to the Mahoning Valley for an April 29 performance at Ford Family Recital Hall.
The acclaimed touring show is the project of Bob Di-Piero, the Liberty native who is one of the top songwriters in Nashville. In the show, DiPiero and other country music songwriters sit on stage with acoustic guitars and take turns telling the stories behind their hit songs before playing them. It’s a relaxed, intimate and humorous show that has garnered acclaim.
Joining DePiero on April 29 will be “Big Al” Anderson, Leslie Satcher and Ian Keaggy, who is the son of Phil Keaggy, the guitarist for legendary Youngstown band Glass Harp, and a former member of pop rock band Hot Chelle Rae.
The Ford hall show will start at 7:30 p.m. Proceeds will benefit Compass Family and Community Services, including Daybreak Youth Crisis Homeless Shelter, Sojourner House and the Rape Crisis and Counseling Center.
Tickets are $75, $42 and $22 and can be purchased at youngstownsymphony.com, by phone at 330-744-0264 and at the DeYor Performing Arts Center box office.
Although he has been living in Nashville for close to four decades, DiPiero still returns to the Mahoning Valley on occasion to visit family and to perform. His April 29 appearance will be the third time he has brought his Songwriters Series to Ford hall in recent years.
DiPiero is a 1969 graduate of Liberty High School and later, Youngstown State University. He got his start as a musician in the Mahoning Valley when he started a band while in high school.
DiPiero moved to Nashville to become a songwriter and quickly scored his first hit, 1980’s “I Can See Forever In Your Eyes,” which was sung by Reba McEntire.
Three years later, he scored his first No. 1 with “American Made,” sung by the Oak Ridge Boys.
Throughout the 1980s and early ’90s, DiPiero wrote more hits, including McEntire’s “Little Rock,” Restless Heart’s “That Rock Won’t Roll,” Shenandoah’s “The Church on Cumberland Road” and John Anderson’s “Money In the Bank.”
In 1995, DiPiero earned the Country Music Association’s Triple Play Award for writing three No. 1 hits in a 12-month span: “Wink” (Neal McCoy), “Take Me As I Am” (Faith Hill) and “Till You Love Me” (Reba McEntire).
He repeated the feat the next year with “Blue Clear Sky” (George Strait), “Daddy’s Money” (Ricochet) and “Worlds Apart” (Vince Gill).
Over the past decade, Di-Piero has continued writing hits. Among them are “Cowboys Like Us” (Strait), “If You Ever Stop Loving Me” (Montgomery Gentry, No. 1), “You Can’t Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl” (Brooks & Dunn) and “Southern Voice” (Tim McGraw, No. 1).
He has been inducted into the Nashville Walk of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. More than 1,200 of his songs have been recorded by other artists.