Nashville Beckons Young Stranger With Stars In His Eyes

Sun Herald

Sunday January 27, 2008

By Charlotte Connell Tamworth

MARK WELLS arrived at the country music festival in Tamworth a stranger in a sea of cowboy hats and twanging guitars.

But last night he was a star in the making, gracing the red carpet and rubbing shoulders with country music's finest at the Golden Guitar awards.

Since winning the Road to Tamworth songwriting award on Tuesday, the Merewether singer-songwriter can hardly walk more than 10 steps in the town without being stopped for autographs, photos and big congratulatory handshakes.

"It's very overwhelming, the response I've been getting here. Everyone's being so friendly and supportive," Wells, 26, said yesterday.

Fellow Novocastrian country singers Catherine Britt, and last year's winner Morgan Evans, were among the first to congratulate him with hugs backstage at the grand final.

"They've being giving me some great advice and even offered me a place to stay," Wells said.

He desperately needed the accommodation.

"I just didn't expect to win and hadn't planned ahead. I was actually meant to play at a wedding this weekend," he said.

Even while packing his bags to leave Tamworth, Wells is preparing himself for his prize: an all-expenses-paid trip to Nashville to meet and write with some of country music's leading songwriters at the CMA Music Festival in June.

The trip will be a life-changing experience for him, according to Tamworth judge Rob Potts, of Entertainment Edge.

He is right. It will, in fact, be the young entertainer's first time out of Australia.

"I've never been overseas before and it's a pretty awesome way to be spending my first trip," he said.

"I'm also going to try and make it a world trip - I've always wanted to go to Europe."

His proud parents, Anne Maree and Phil, who also have yet to venture out of the country, are going to do their "very best to get over there", Wells's mum said.

Wells wrote his first song when he was five - and 21 years of practice have definitely paid off.

Potts said Wells was "far and away the best songwriter in the competition".

Although Wells believes his strength lies in his writing, there's no denying his performance skills.

At a show at Tamworth Regional Centre last week the capacity crowd responded by clapping in time and cheering along with his two original songs, Playing With Fire, co-written with Golden Guitar nominee Evans, and When It All Boils Down, co-written with Brian Daly.

© 2008 Sun Herald

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