- April 26, 2024
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The backyard at Kokomo’s Café in Flagler Beach was transformed Friday night into a garden party concert featuring national recording artist Tommy Womack.
So how did Womack, a Nashville singer/songwriter, find his way to Flagler Beach? It’s all about relationships.
John Birney, or J.B. as his friends know him, has hosted Womack on his St. Augustine radio show several times in the past, and when Womack was in search of a gig in Florida, which could also double as a beach vacation for him and his son, Birney put the whole thing together.
“J.B. is probably the most vocal cheerleader for the Americana music market in this neck of the woods,” Womack said. “He’s got the energy of 25 people packed into one body, and he loves music, and guys that do what I do depend on individuals like J.B.”
Womack described his music, Americana, as country music for liberals.
“I like to play a set that tells a story,” he said. “A lot of my songs are autobiographical, so if I play them in the right order, by the end of the set you know me pretty well.”
His opener, 2008 Flagler Palm Coast High School graduate Shea Birney, described what he does as folky, with slight punk tones.
While the parrot head convention scattered throughout the yard was not the normal St. Augustine bar scene that Shea Birney usually plays to, he said he was excited not only for the chance to open for a national artist, but also to test out his original material on a new crowd.
The beach scene for Womack, however, was familiar. In fact, one of the songs he wrote, “Nobody from Nowhere,” was recorded by fellow beach bum Jimmy Buffett on his 2009 album “Buffet Hotel.”
“You’ve got to cherish places like this,” Womack said of Flagler Beach. “In a world that is modernizing all the time, you have to cherish places that still have history.”
