Kerrytown in downtown Ann Arbor was the place to see Nashville-style country music this Thursday evening. The forth annual Nashbash featured musicians from around these parts and the festival exposed Ann Arbor to some up-and-coming acts who traveled here from Nashville, Tennessee. Aut Bar produced a billowing tower of smoke in the parking lot next to the Farmer’s Market. They were cooking up barbecue and serving up beers for event attendees, while Sweetwaters lowered the temperature with cold drinks.

Being there truly felt like a neighborhood event. Creating a fun neighborhood event was on the mind of Deanna Relyea, founder of the Kerrytown Concert House and President of the Kerrytown District Association, when they were thinking about new events to throw in Kerrytown, four years ago. “Synchronicity” is the word Relyea chooses to describe how the first annual event came together. The Kerrytown District Association “was thinking about events for our neighborhood and we thought, really, there wasn’t a festival in town with country music.”

At the very same time, Whit Hill, a former Ann Arbor resident and dance company director who is now a Nashville musician, had the exact same idea. While she was in the process of moving from Ann Arbor to Nashville, she thought, “we ought to have a country music festival in Ann Arbor. I really liked the named Nashbash. The idea was to bring some people from Nashville up here to do a festival,” she says. Busy with her move, Hill was glad that she had someone else to work with on the idea. Nashbash has her in charge of booking up-and-coming acts from Nashville and the Kerrytown District Association takes care of the rest, which includes booking local area acts and getting promotional support from the DDA.

The evening’s festival kicked off with sets by local area musicians, Bill Bynum & Co. and Lisa Pappas and Michael Weiss. Local acts were followed by Nashville musicians Pam Kennedy Boylan and Steven Mitchell. Kennedy Boylan is Relyea’s daughter-in-law — who brought family member and fellow musician Matt Boylan up on stage during the set. Nashville’s Louise Mosrie, a winner of the prestigious Kerrville Folk Music Compeition, took the stage next. Mosrie was a last minute add to the festival. Hill was “doing a gig with her down in Nashville — we do these writers’ nights. She mentioned that she was going to be in Michigan doing a house concert,” and some other gigs, so the timing worked out perfectly, according to Hill. Olivia West and her band hit the stage next, a true crowd favorite. She was followed by Hill’s band, Whit Hill & the Postcards, who wrapped up the night. After the show, the crew headed over to the Aut Bar for an “Afterglow” party where the music continued.

Attendees of all ages seemed to have fun at the event. I ran into Mike Zaher, a retired Romulus district school teacher who has attended all four Nashbash festivals. He is a friend and former neighbor of Hill, who “lived a couple of doors down from me for a long time,” he says. “This is the fourth year I’ve been here. I started with it at the beginning and I keep coming back. That says it all!” he says. “Whit coming back to Ann Arbor (to do the festival) says something. She wants to broaden her connections, since moving south, but she’s also bringing what she’s finding in Nashville back to us,” he says.

Zaher’s friend Jim Courtney, a retired engineer, had just arrived at the festival when I spoke with him. He attended the festival last year and within the first 15 minutes of listening this year’s show, he concluded; “I’m enjoying the music this year. I enjoyed it last year, but I like it much more this year. It’s a little more Nashville than what I expected from what I saw last year,” which was “more on the folk side,” in his opinion. “From what I’ve heard so far, this is Nashville,” he explains.

Mara Boyd came to the festival last year and this year, and she says; “There’s nothing better than live music and good barbeque in the Summer in Ann Arbor.”

The event seems to be catching on. Many of the audience members who have attended in the past told me that the crowd seemed bigger this year. Two younger adult attendees found out about the show by looking at posters and hearing about it from their acquaintances who are big country music fans. Liz Haas doesn’t necessarily “seek country music out, but I really enjoy hearing it — especially at a venue like this,” she says. Her friend Aubrey Patino, another first-timer, thinks “It’s really nice. The venue it intimate, and it’s nice to be outside,” she says.

Jennifer Eberbach is a free-lance writer for AnnArbor.com.