Nashville might just evoke images of big hats and country music to some people, but it’s much more than that for those who make music for a living. There’s a reason so many songwriters and musicians find their way there to call it home.

I first learned about Nashville-based songwriter Liz Longley back in the “vintage years” of COVID, when her then-new record “Funeral For My Past” was released in 2020. We had a few of her tunes in rotation at KPIG-FM, and I was wrangling artists to play a livestreaming series we ran on Facebook. (No live concerts back then, remember?) Longley played one of the first we did, and you can find her performance in the archives over at kpig.com. Local audiences now have a chance to see her live and in-person on Thursday, as she performs at the Lille Aeske Arthouse in Boulder Creek.

In a phone interview, she told the Sentinel that “KPIG was very kind to start spinning my 2020 record when it came out. At the time when we were wondering what’s even going on, it felt really nice to feel like somebody was listening.”

She was raised in Philadelphia and recalled the path she took to Nashville. After “growing up in a very musical household,” she said, “I left to study at the Berklee School of Music” (in Boston). “Berklee gave me so many tools, they’ve just sunk into my process, and I feel really grateful and am still in touch with the professors there.”

She continued, “Since I’m an East Coast girl, after graduating, I tried out New York City for a while. I found out that I was touring so much, I was paying more in parking tickets than I was in rent.” So she decided to try Nashville.

“A lot of my friends from college moved to Nashville. I tried it out and fell in love with the community,” she said. Geographically, it also made sense and was a good place to anchor herself between shows on the road. “I tour constantly and it’s a great spot to land between tours. And for recording and writing,” she added, “you’re around so many people who are doing the same thing as you.”

Longley quickly discovered the joy of writing with others in Nashville. She had collaborated with other writers before, but there it was on a different level. “The co-writing community is really special here. You write faster, you finish songs quicker and you get ideas that you never would have on your own. It was intimidating at first, but I dove into that world, and I was writing constantly.”

Much of the work from those co-writing sessions led to her new single, “Start Again,” which has a very Americana vibe, and a new record, “New Life” that drops March 21.

But whether it’s creating songs on her own or with a collaborator, songwriting is the only thing she’s ever wanted to do.

“I wrote my first song when I was 14,” she recalled. “I remember at a school recital; I had a solo and was going to do somebody else’s song. My teacher said, ‘No, you’re singing your song and you’re debuting it.’ I was absolutely shaking in my boots, and it’s so crazy to say, but I knew right then it’s what I wanted to do. It’s what I’ve been doing ever since.”

Michael Gaither is a performing songwriter, radio DJ and the music writer for The Santa Cruz Sentinel.