Live at the Bluebird Café, Nashville

On a road trip to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge, I stopped in Nashville Monday night. This meant I had a chance to play the open mic at the Bluebird Café, and I ended up getting one of the 18 spots for the evening. I’ve wanted to play here for several years now, ever since I heard David Jacobs-Strain talk about it when he played the Heritage Music Fest in Wheeling, WV. I’ve seen a handful of great shows at this venue (Gary Nicholson, Don Henry, Phil O'Donnell, Amazing Rhythm Aces…), but this was the fist time I made it on the stage.

Honestly, this place is stressful on a Monday night, they have about 90 minutes to get through as many songs as possible, so navigate yourself around guitar cases to the stage in an over crowded room quickly. Play your song, no long intros, no showboating solos, call out your number in line, and put the cable back when you’re done…I had to give a short intro, I played a (necessary) solo, and forgot to say my number. I did put the cable back though, hopefully that’s enough for a return trip someday.

So here’s the video, I’m usually really picky about crowd videos, because they always sound so thin noisy, but a perfectly silent crowd and a recording studio owner soundman led to some fairly watchable content, so here ya go!