This Saturday night, the people of Natchez will have a rare opportunity to see one of the most gifted artists Mississippi has ever produced.

Mac McAnally — who is about to start a summer tour with Jimmy Buffett that includes shows with the Eagles — will be taking a quick side trip to our town to kick off the 2018 Natchez Festival of Music.

Mac is bringing along some members of Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, and that means serious fun, musically speaking.

A lot of people know McAnally has been voted the CMA Musician of the Year nine times, tying the great Chet Atkins, but many don’t know what a gifted songwriter and performer he is.

McAnally wrote the No. 1 hit “Old Flame” for Alabama, as well as number ones for Kenny Chesney, Sawyer Brown and others. That’s a rare accomplishment, but does that mean he can put on a great show? Not necessarily.

Many gifted songwriters often turn out to be mediocre performers at best. But Mac is the exception to that rule.

McAnally was the first recording artist signed by record mogul David Geffen to his new label in 1983. And while McAnally is most famous for the country hits he’s written, produced and played on, he’s filled his own albums with complex, insightful songs that defy categorization.

His fingerstyle guitar playing makes James Taylor sound elementary, and his piano playing puts Jerry Lee Lewis in the shade.

But most of all, Mac is a storyteller. His lyrics — as wise as John Prine’s and as clever as Paul Simon’s — are studied as a master class by the best songwriters in Nashville.

Whenever McAnally is asked about his songwriting insight, he always gives great credit to his boyhood in Mississippi.

Raised in Belmont, a few miles from the recording mecca of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, McAnally grew up listening to the old men who sat whittling on the town’s park benches.  Every time he tells a story, you can hear their age-old wisdom and wry honesty in his voice. And while McAnally started out playing piano in a Baptist church, he moved on to become a studio musician in Muscle Shoals, and then a performer so accomplished that Paul McCartney once called him off the stage to tell him how great his songs were.

When I’m out on book tour, and some New York journalist asks me who the greatest living writer from Mississippi is, I don’t name Pulitzer Prize winner Donna Tartt or National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. I say Mac McAnally.

So do yourself a favor and come see what the fuss is about. I’ll be on stage to introduce Mac and tell the embarrassing story of how I met him when I was 18 years old.  But all you really need to know is this: it’s unlikely that you’ll ever see a musician or songwriter this good again in your life.

Greg Iles of Natchez is the author of several novels including most recently The Natchez Burning Trilogy.