A Night Out in Nashville: Bluebird Cafe
On Saturday night, two Towers Head Residents (one being me) took a group of 20 students to the Bluebird Cafe. Bluebird Cafe is a legendary place where multitudes of popular songs have been birthed. It’s one of Nashville’s best known attractions. The song writers that perform there are absolutely amazing!
At 5:45pm, we boarded our Inshuttle bus for the 6:30pm show. When we got to Bluebird around 6:15pm, we saw a huge line of about 15-20 people waiting to get in. Luckily, we had already made the reservations so we could walk right in. Our group of twenty took up about 1/5 of the entire cafe. They kept letting people in until there were people leaning on walls and standing close to the door to hear the show.
The songwriters in the center of the cafe were Rachel Williams, Marcia Ramirez, Coley McCabe and Kim Copeland. The goal is to get two rounds in of songs (about 2 hours of music 6:30-8:30pm). It was really nice. These women had fantastic voices, and all of their pieces were original. I learned what a beautiful profession being a songwriter is. They have retreats, open mic nights, appointments with other songwriters… you name it. Oftentimes, if their song gets picked up by a famous artist, the artist gets famous – not the songwriter (unless they are the same person). That is why I believe to persevere at songwriting, one must be passionate about making music, regardless of recognition. However, Rachel, out of the group, was considered a rising star – not just a song writer; she was a top 12 finalist in Nashville Star in 2004, trying to make it as an artist herself.
The food at the cafe was pretty basic southern cooking. I got fries, iced tea, and cajun catfish. It was yummy! :-) Overall, the atmosphere was great. It was just a nice change from the Vanderbilt bubble I experience daily as a student.