The +West End+ Story

West End —
The Earliest Attempt

In Nashville, many long years ago (40 maybe?), Kirk Beasley recruited a number of his talented friends to begin recording a group of songs that he was writing, along with Ray Perkins and other Nashville writers. The core of that first iteration of West End was Kirk, Bobby Ogdin, Jon Goin, and David Humphreys. Ben Harris at GroundStar Laboratories engineered and mixed the first two songs, and soon after Travis Turk became, and remains to this day, the chief engineer for West End.

West End —
The Name

Here is what Kirk says: “I grew up in Nashville on West End Avenue, about halfway between Vanderbilt University and Belle Meade. In 1979, I was looking for a place to live after returning to Nashville from Cincinnati. I was not flush with cash. My friend (and co-writer of “Dodge City”) Graham Fuqua lived in an apartment building at 32nd Avenue South and West End Avenue. It turns out that the building’s owner was the head of Epic Records in Nashville, the great Billy Sherrill. In addition to being the producer of George Jones, Tammy Wynette, and many others, he was also a family friend. So … Billy’s building manager overlooked my sad lack of credit references and let me have an apartment there. Night after night, I sat and wrote songs in that apartment overlooking West End and the city skyline.”

Bobby Ogdin and Kirk Beasley continue as the core of +West End+, and Travis Turk is the chief engineer. In the first three albums, +West End+ employs the talents of the Spare Time Pickers, who include Charlie McCoy (Country Music Hall of Fame), Bruce Dees, Billy Contreras, Joe Wright, Tim and Roddy Smith, Tom Hemby, and other Nashville talents. In Ireland, Tom Shinny and Noel Alfred (Epic Shadow), Jason Duffy, and Griselda Williams (STR716) have joined the fun. The chief engineer remains Travis Turk, AES Lifetime Achievement award winner.

West End —
The Band

West End —
The Song

The first song on STR715, West End, is the song of the same name, penned by Kirk and Ray Perkins in the aforementioned apartment.

Several years ago, Kirk moved to Ireland from Hawai`i and worked with a number of music professionals there. In 2018, Spare Time Partners LLC was formed in Tennessee. STR715 was recorded in Ireland and Tennessee (2018 – 2019) with a mix of Irish and American singers and players. You can read more about this in the notes on the album page.