Country music’s piano man Phil Vassar performing at Iowa Speedway

Vassar, whose current CD “Prayer of A Common Man” is now in stores, first hit the country scene as a song writer. Some of the Virginia native’s best known hits climbed the charts to No. 1 for other artists including Jo Dee Messina’s “Bye Bye” and “I’m Alright,” Tim McGraw’s “For a Little While” and “Next 30 Years,” Alan Jackson’s “Right on the Money” and Collin Raye’s “Little Red Rodeo.” “I came to town to try and be an artist and everybody hated my songs. All the labels hated my songs,” Vassar said of his arrival in Nashville, Tenn., the country music capital of the U.S. “Eventually I started getting songs recorded (by other performers) because nobody was going to let me record my own songs because ‘you’re a piano player and it’s not goin