Marriage can be a funny thing.  Just when you think you know everything there is to know about your significant someone, surprise, you don't. 

I experienced this first hand a few years back as I, for the very first time, watched my husband Tony take to the stage to perform his original music. As much as I wish I could say that he serenaded me throughout our courtship, it was just not the case. Instead, my discovery of his talent came with a PA system and a rowdy bar crowd.

As Tony performs this week alongside fellow local musicians Kevin McIntyre, Bill Steely and Adam Reist as part of the Larchmont Singer/Songwriters Series (Thursday, March 4 at the Watercolor Café, 8 p.m.), I wonder if maybe he'll throw my initial obliviousness to his musical career as an anecdote at the audience between tunes. 

The evening is to mark the third time these uniquely different musicians will share the stage, the spotlight and the microphone as they swap their original songs and the stories and inspirations behind them.

A unique type of performance known as a "songwriters round," it is a mainstay among professional songwriters in Nashville.  The idea to give the theme a local spin can be credited to Kevin McIntyre.

After sitting in with Adam and his band Twist of Fate at a party in 2008, seeing Bill and Tony perform at the Watercolor, and taking local songwriting workshops, McIntyre thought it would be fun to get the four musicians together and do a show. "My idea was based on the classic Nashville songwriting shows that used to take place in New York City's The Bottom Line," he said. 

McIntyre, a self-taught musician who's been writing and playing for over twenty years, brings plenty of his own inspiration fodder to the stage thanks, in part, to an early job that found him working at one very famous Woodstock recording studio. 

"I got to hang out with everyone from REM to Warren Zevon to Graham Parker," McIntyre reminisces. "I was already a huge music fan. Being around these musicians really inspired me to take my hobby more seriously."

Years later, fronting his own band, Kevin McIntyre and The Lawn Wranglers, McIntyre plans to work in a studio once again, this time recording his very own CD.

Bill Steely, leader of the band Where's Dave, is also no stranger to the recording studio, or to the New York music scene, for that matter. Playing in bands around the city clubs since the mid-80s, the release of Steely's fourth CD with his band later this year marks yet another milestone in his long love affair with music.

For Adam Reist, whose ability to rouse a club full of people onto the dance floor has made his own band Twist Of Fate a local favorite, sees the Songwriting Series as a great opportunity to showcase his songwriting talents in a very different light.

"When performing with the band, my originals are always strategically interweaved into our lineup of crowd-pleasing cover songs," he said. Once the crowd is up dancing, "as a front man, my goal is to keep them moving and entertained." And while Reist will typically give a little bit of background story to his originals as a way to connect the audience to the song, the delivery is usually very short and sweet.

"What I enjoy most about these evenings is that it allows us, four completely musicians with completely different styles, to play before an audience that is there to really listen, not just to the music, but to the words and the stories behind them," Reist said. "It makes for a truly amazing experience for everyone in the room."

So what is it like to get up on stage alone and perform your own songs before an audience of fellow musicians and fans?  Thinking back to my opening story, I asked my husband what exactly was that first performance like for him.

His answer was simple: "Terrifying."

"If I was in a poorly written play or was asked to perform someone else's music and lyrics and it was a flop, well, there was always someone to point a finger at," he laughs. "In this case I have only myself blame."