Heart Strings: How a classic Nashville guitar pull inspired MultiCare’s star-studded Spokane benefit show

Country music artists with No. 1 songs will string together multiple hits at a local venue this weekend, but it won’t be the Spokane Arena.

Instead, the singer-songwriters are getting together on stage to play chart-topping music in a “guitar pull” for the Heart Strings concert Saturday night at the Davenport Grand. The show benefits a critical service that helps the city’s tiniest and most vulnerable people: the babies born premature and cared for at MultiCare Deaconess Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The Heart Strings support each year will go to the health care services with the highest need, said Carolyn Kadyk, executive director of the MultiCare Inland Northwest Foundation, which hosts the fundraiser. This year , that’s the 47-bed NICU for premature infants or babies with serious health issues.

The concert lineup is star-studded, including Bryan White with chart-topping songs “Someone Else’s Star” “Sittin’ on Go,” and a ballad duet recorded with Shania Twain, “From This Moment On.” The lineup has husband-wife duo Thompson Square, known for “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not”; Scotty Emerick, a singer who helped pen multiple Toby Keith hits, such as “I Love This Bar” and “As Good as I Once Was”; and Danielle Bradbery, country-pop winner of “The Voice” Season 4.

Comedian Aaron Weber, a Grand Ole Opry regular, is set to open with a stand-up routine. Organizers asked Jenny Gill, singer-songwriter and daughter of performer Vince Gill, to emcee with KHQ co-anchor Sam Adams.

“The concert is meant to have a very interactive, intimate feel; they’ll tell stories, laugh and they may have written a song together, so they’ll share that,” Kadyk said.

Four years of concerts have raised more than $1.3 million. All proceeds go to the hospital’s regional services, which can also include cardiac care or behavioral health.

The Nashville, Tennessee-to-Spokane backstory can be traced to White in 2019. He performed during the first year of the benefit and has returned each time to either play music or emcee.

That first year with White raised $235,000 and included singer-songwriters Craig Campbell, Lauren Alaina and Brandon Lay.

White was impressed with Spokane and returned to run a Bloomsday, then brought his son for Hoopfest and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Kennel.

“One of the really special things that has come out of Heart Strings is this beautiful relationship and partnership between people from our community in Spokane and the surrounding Inland Northwest and Nashville,” Kadyk said.

Kadyk has been with MultiCare for more than 11 years and moved to Spokane before 2019 to build the foundation and philanthropy. She once worked in Hollywood in TV and radio, and she did concert planning. After exploring ideas to create a different type of Spokane fundraiser, she set sights on a benefit concert and partnered with Spokane’s 93.7 radio station to promote it.

“The feedback we heard from that concert was people loved that we brought something a little different – that feel when you come to it in person and it’s a songwriters’ round, so a guitar pull, which is really common in Nashville but not common where we are,” Kadyk said.

“That’s how it started, and Bryan White, as one of the artists the first year, he and I stayed in touch and became very dear friends; he’s like family now. He actually was so moved by the work we do, our mission and our community that he said, ‘How else can I help?’

“When you ask, how do we get the caliber of artists to come, a lot has to do with Bryan. He’s part of calling his friends’ network and saying, ‘I’ve been involved with this as an artist.’ He’s been deeply involved with us since that May of 2019.”

Although he’s a longtime Nashville resident, White has toured the Deaconess NICU about three times and feels a connection, she said. “He’s got a huge heart for Spokane.”

White did a second concert in summer 2019 at the Coeur d’Alene Resort to raise funds for Deaconess NICU, and the timing was a few days after Hoopfest ended, she said.

“I knew about his son loving basketball. We’re the official medical partner for Hoopfest, and so (former Hoopfest director) Matt Santangelo helped me set up a special experience for his son. They got to come and enjoy Hoopfest and his son, Jackson, was a slam dunk judge. … We showed him some Spokane love.”

Most of the artists each year come early and tour MultiCare’s facilities, including the NICU. They learn 100% of every concert dollar raised goes directly to help people who need health care, Kadyk said. “No donor dollars or sponsor dollars pay salaries or the event fees, anything else; it goes directly to the cause.”

The virtual February 2021 concert, headlined by Tim McGraw and with 28 artists, benefited MultiCare’s behavioral health programs. Earlier benefits supported MultiCare’s Pulse Heart Institute and oncology care. Last year’s $700,000 in proceeds broke a record, which also went toward NICU costs.

The unit cared for 399 patients last year, and it also has a Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome unit.

Kadyk said the NICU’s overall costs are high for technology, equipment, services, training and refreshing rooms. The foundation planned to buy replacements for 27 incubators called a Giraffe bed that each cost $50,000, she said.

The beds help regulate the baby’s environment, including temperature, humidity and sound. The baby’s heartbeat and vitals are monitored, and the baby’s weight also can be measured instantly without moving the infant. From last year’s proceeds, the foundation has so far bought 14 new beds.

“We’ve made a commitment in the foundation to invest $3 million in the unit, which does include the $700,000 from last year,” Kadyk said. “We serve a lot of families who are experiencing deep financial hardships, so one of the things we have is a fund called Helping Hands, which our social workers can use to remove barriers to help in healing.”

It might mean giving a prepaid gasoline card to a family of a NICU infant for travel from Pullman or to give funds toward a hotel stay for a few days.

The concert also brings regional support, she said, “to lift up these families and help the tiniest and most vulnerable in our community have the best chance at survival.”

Tickets for the benefit concert start at $50 and can be purchased at multicareheartstrings.org.