Despite heavy clouds and rain threatening to break all evening, it was held at bay as large crowds continue to show up for the Levitt AMP Middlesboro Music Series.

Mo Pitney and his band took the stage for an eager crowd and immediately kicked it into high gear for a set that never waned and kept the audience engaged.

“On our end of the stage, that really was one of the best nights we’ve had in a long time,” said Pitney.

When it came to his desire to start playing instruments, Pitney stated “I think every little boy wants to be like their hero. When I was little, that was my dad.”

Pitney got a hold of his father’s country records and guitar and that is where it all began.

Pitney’s self-discovery as a fully formed artist grew gradually.

“One thing I realized growing up is I loved the artists I listened to so much, any time I tried to cover any of their songs I would sing it exactly the way they sang it. It wasn’t until I could write my own songs that I could create a platform, to say, sing the way all of heroes did at once. It wasn’t until I started writing, I don’t think, that I really became an artist. I was just a singer who could copy well,” he said.

While country was his first exposure to the world of music, Pitney also found his love for bluegrass and the banjo when he heard a bluegrass band live for the first time.

“I was a real bluegrass snob for a while. It was the only music I would listen to. It was the only music on the planet. I owe a lot of the precision end to the music that we play and the attention to detail to being brought up in bluegrass,” he said.

Pitney also spoke to his process of songwriting.

“When I moved to Nashville, I thought song writing was just a way to manipulate words to get people to react. The more living I did, the more I listened to people’s music that moved me. I realized what I was connecting with was believability. I realized the best thing to write about was something that was true, something I lived through.”