The Bluebird Café

THE BLUEBIRD Legacy in the Making CAFE

In 1982, The Bluebird Cafe opened its doors and evolved, quickly, from being just another place to eat in Nashville, Tennessee, to being one of the world’s premier listening rooms for emerging and established country songwriters. While The Bluebird holds only 100 people, its iconic appeal, over more than 30 years, persists as far bigger than its seating capacity. Recently, the Legacy Lab spoke with Amy Kurland, the founder of The Bluebird Cafe, to learn about how she transformed her personal passion into a famous and still-vital business, recounting not only her brand’s legacy, but also its legacy in the making.

My guitar-playing boyfriend and his friends said, ‘Why don’t you put in a stage, and we’ll put music in there?’ And so, that’s what I did. It was no more than the first fun idea of a young person. But of course, the minute the money had gone to the bank and the keys were in the door, I got really serious about my passion. I didn’t want to fail. I didn’t want to waste the money. I wanted to get good at this. I had to stop kidding around.

The Bluebird is famous for a few things, especially the Writers’ Night and playing ‘In the Round.’ How did those things begin?

One night, maybe three or four months in, a friend who was book- ing the music brought in a Writers’ Night. I didn’t even know what it was. But we did this Writers’ Night. It was a benefit show, and when I arrived the room was full. Every- body was listening attentively. You could’ve heard a pin drop in there. Tell us the origin story of The bars, eating food and being with guys The next morning, when I went to Bluebird Cafe. Did you have a who played the guitar. I was just out of ring out the cash register, it was the sense of what it would become, or college, and I wanted to open a restau- most money I’d made to date. All I were you just following a passion? rant. I was dating a guitar player, and thought was, ‘Writers’ Night. Let’s do we liked to go out and drink in music more Writers’ Nights.’ That wasn’t I started with a passion, but it wasn’t clubs. So with a small inheritance from some brilliance on my part. That was strictly for songwriters or music. It was my grandmother, and an unwillingness just grace, happenstance and seren- initially a passion for hanging out in to get a real job, I opened a restaurant. dipity that came together, and I was

2015 1 able to pay attention to it and make all sharing in a way that is less the music. If somebody was talking, it happen. Over the next few years, performance than it is community. the audience would turn around I phased out the lunch business and And over the years, we did more and and tell them to shush. We took on added a second show every night, more of those ‘In the Round’ perfor- ‘shush,’ capital SHHH and an excla- and started thinking in terms of one mances. The music is the thing that mation point basically as our motto. show for the up-and-coming song- makes The Bluebird perfect. writers and one show for successful We are a listening room. The Bluebird songwriters. We started providing What was the key to making The is much less interested in selling max- space for people who were brand- Bluebird what it is today? How did imum numbers of drinks than it is in new to Nashville to come in to play you foster that success? making sure the musicians are listened and get a start, and for people who to. It is probably the most important have had success to celebrate and I absolutely think it starts with thing that The Bluebird does. share their music. the musicians. Do you have any favorite stories At the time, and probably today of musicians who materialized into also, if you had a garage in the worst something exceptional? “The Bluebird is part of town and you put a sign on it that said we have a songwriters’ There were so many over the much less interested night, you’d have lots of songwriters years. Artists like Vince Gill, Kathy in selling maximum lined up to play because they need Mattea, Dierks Bentley, Keith Urban, numbers of drinks a place to play. And there may not Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum be as much of the general public all got their start at The Bluebird. than it is in making there to begin with as there are However, one story in particular sure the musicians other songwriters to cheer on their jumps to the top: Garth Brooks friends or, you know, their mothers auditioned in 1987. He had been in are listened to. It is or their babysitters or their dog Nashville, scared off and turned probably the most walkers. People who are interested down by the labels, moved home to in those people, and who are part of Oklahoma then turned around and important thing that the community where songwriters came back and auditioned at The The Bluebird does.” meet each other, find cowriters, find Bluebird. I didn’t know who he was, girlfriends, find somebody to have but I gave him the highest score Thanksgiving dinner with. Song- I have ever given anybody for the writers tend to be people from out audition. I don’t remember the title Another miraculous thing that hap- of town—nomadic people who just of the song. I do know it was about pened, songwriters Thom Schuyler, moved to Nashville. They’re really putting a woman on a pedestal, and Fred Knobloch and Don Schlitz looking for a place they can connect I thought it was lovely and he had had a wonderful idea about set- to and feel at home, and The Blue- tremendous presentation. He just ting up in the middle of the room bird provided that. The audience had that charisma. That was just to perform, almost as if you had grows with them and follows them. his audition, just one minute of a party and everybody would be one song. around you. They would call it ‘In the I would say another key thing, and Round.’ A few weeks later, we tried I can’t take all the credit for this, is When Garth came back to play, he it and it was this incredible, intimate that the people who would come to got a standing ovation at the end of moment of audience and musicians The Bluebird really came to listen to his first song. Generally, people get

2015 2 to play three songs at the Writ- You have to think about what you do Did you have a vision for the ers’ Night, and if they get a warm best, what you enjoy the most and legacy you wanted to leave round of applause at the end of what is the most meaningful thing to behind? Was it something you the three songs, they’ve done well. you. My father was a musician, and I were actively thinking about? A few months after that, he came am a very poor piano player, but I love back to play a showcase that the music. To be able to be involved in It came down to the big picture, Nashville Entertainment Associa- making music even though the music especially when I started thinking tion was putting on, and the record isn’t coming out of me, to be able to about selling it. I knew I wanted this label that had already turned him participate in the creativity just by place to exist long after I was gone. down, Capitol Records, was there providing the base for it, I mean, what The Bluebird has become part of the in person and then they got it. I an honor and a thrill that is for me. fabric of Nashville, and really part mean, they grabbed him and took of the process for artists and song- him down the back hall and made writers to get started in Nashville. It him agree to sign a record deal with would be a tragedy, maybe even a them right there. Garth Brooks is “Garth Brooks is a disaster, if there wasn’t The Bluebird a tremendous talent, and he didn’t for people to come to. Because as need The Bluebird to get famous, tremendous talent, open as Nashville is to musicians and except that he needed to be seen and he didn’t need songwriters, a lot of doors are shut. in person in a setting where people And when you first get in, get out of were really listening. The Bluebird to your car, get off the bus, you’ve got get famous, except to find a place where you can walk in Can you describe a bit of the that he needed to and start playing. The Bluebird is one journey of what The Bluebird of those live music venues, a listening became for you from when you be seen in person room, where the doors are open. opened it to when you sold it? in a setting where When I decided after 25 years I was It was truly miraculous and meant people were really tired of the harder parts of running to be. The only thing I had to do was listening.” a venue—fixing the ice machine and pay close attention and be willing to taking care of the plumbing, which work really hard to make it happen. was my job too—I started to think, My story is that I went into business “How could this go on after me?” not knowing what the hell I was One of the songbooks I love to I couldn’t sell it to an individual or doing. I had worked in restaurants play is Carole King’s Tapestry. I even a big business because there is but had no business background, have the piano music to that, and far more money in running a sports and I was lucky to run into an advisor I can thump out a version of those bar than running a listening room, I who said there is no shame in going songs that only I would recognize. promise you that. Then it just came back to school even once you’re in But then one night, Carole King to me: I’ll give it to the Nashville business. So, I went back to the local was in The Bluebird playing those Songwriters Association. I had been community college and took night songs right next to me, and she was working with them forever. They had classes twice a week after I’d worked encouraging the audience to sing basically the same mission as The all day. The one that impacted me the along, and I got to have that expe- Bluebird. It took a year for them to most was a marketing class where rience of making music with Carole shepherd me through the process. I learned you have to be one thing. King. It was a real incredible gift to They insisted on paying something You can’t be everything to everybody. have been able to do that. for it, and a woman who works at the

2015 3 Songwriters Association is now the sellout night, but the way we sup- executive director of The Bluebird. ported those musicians was making She had been a waitress at The Blue- them feel like they were having a bird, a bartender at The Bluebird, good night. City Winery recently “So, I went back to had been involved in our marketing moved to Nashville with probably the local community process, and so we have the same a 300-seat venue. It’s got good vision. That’s terrific for me. sound and sight lines, but you college and took couldn’t put a ‘nobody’ in there night classes twice a What’s your sense of some of because it would feel like they’re week after I’d worked the changes? How do you feel playing to an empty warehouse, seeing The Bluebird on the TV and that’s not what The Bluebird all day. The one that show Nashville? is about. The Bluebird is really a impacted me the place for people to get that start The Bluebird is twice as big now in their career, be heard and be most was a marketing as it was when I was there, mostly discovered. The Bluebird would class where I learned because of the TV show Nashville. never be the same if the only you have to be one In my day, The Bluebird would sell people who could play there were out every Friday and Saturday night already successful. thing. You can’t show, and maybe a couple shows be everything to during the week. The Bluebird, these Maybe if we could buy the next- days, sells out every single show door neighbor’s space and keep everybody.” with a waiting list of 100 or more it in the same location, and create for each show. a way to make it larger, so that nobody would notice. There would I couldn’t be more thrilled with being be nothing wrong with having 120 What are some things you part of that show and, in general, seats or 130 seats. The thing is got right, whether by divine with the way The Bluebird is repre- to make it feel like you’re never intervention or serendipity, sented. The Bluebird is a character more than three rows away from when you created this thing? in the show and with all the crazy, the musician. If you get much dramatic things that happen, when- bigger than that, you’re going to Number one on my list was doing ever they want to get back to the lose the ability to keep people ‘In the Round.’ When Thom, Fred heart and the soul and the reason quiet. In general, I think that when and Don came in and said they why people do this, they put a song songwriters play in a room that wanted to do this ‘In the Round’ in The Bluebird, and I love that. is that size where nobody is far thing, it was Sunday night and we away from them, people are nat- were all drinking heavily. I was the There’s such demand, but it’s urally going to listen. You know, only one who woke up Monday maintained its 100-seat venue. Was once you get inside The Bluebird, morning and asked, ‘Did you mean expanding the space considered, you’re not going to be able to talk. it?’ They might’ve all forgotten or is the 100-seat space part of the Somebody tried to make a reser- about it. I really honored those guys magic, so to speak? vation for a bachelorette party. for about two years. They were the We wouldn’t take the reservation only act that I allowed to do it that It’s very important to musicians unless they agreed very clearly way. Eventually, we opened it up to to feel like they’re playing to a that listening is what they were another act by a group of women good audience. It may not be a coming there for. and called it ‘The Women In the

2015 4 Round,’ one of whom was Pam Tillis, those musicians and songwriters the At the age of 33, The Bluebird Cafe who went on to a great country two things they wanted the most in remains as vital as it’s ever been. The music career. the world. One was to be listened to, small, albeit intimate, listening room is and the second was to have a chance regularly featured on the hit television The Bluebird made a big effort for for their performance to perhaps show Nashville, its live shows are always those who play ‘In the Round.’ We do carry them to the next level. sold out, and new generations of fans not just pick four random songwriters from around the world are discovering a and put them up on stage together What would you say is the real passion for the country music genre and say, ‘Go play.’ The people who most surprising thing for new via The Bluebird’s very big reach. play ‘In the Round’ have to know each generations of fans just now other, know each other’s material, like discovering The Bluebird? Whether by design, divine intervention each other, write together. There has or serendipity, or maybe all of the to be something more to that rela- Until the TV show, the most sur- above, The Bluebird Cafe succeeds by tionship than just ending up on the prising thing to people always was mobilizing a community of songwriters same stage on the same night. how small it is. They’ve heard so much with a passion to be heard and, in turn, about it, and they expect it to be big finding a large audience with a real love and glamorous, and it’s quite small. for listening to their songs. The Bluebird The other thing that might be sur- elevates the live format from one that “But I think the most prising to someone from out of town separates performers from the audience, surprising thing is, is that it’s not in downtown Nashville. to one that surrounds musicians with It’s in the suburbs, not far from Music listeners. And it even authored some you may think you Row, but it’s not in the thick of things. of the rules of its live shows specifically don’t like country But I think the most surprising thing is, around some of the rules suggested you may think you don’t like country by its audience: embracing quietness music, but if you music, but if you sit down at The Blue- to give the performers the entire room sit down at The bird, you will love it. I can’t tell you how to fill with sound. Even as the brand’s many people have said to me, ‘I never Bluebird, you will founder passed the experience forward, did like country music before I came she made sure to entrust its modern to The Bluebird, but once I heard it in love it.” legacy to an organization, the Nashville this format where somebody told me Songwriters Association International, why they were singing about their dog that shares her same sense of purpose: and their truck and their girlfriend, making sure that The Bluebird’s history One of the other things that I deter- suddenly it became real to me.’ That’s would continue to be written every day. mined was that the audience I need- terrific because people who hear ed to be appealing to most was not this music are just captivated by it, the people who came to listen. The and suddenly, they care about who audience I needed to appeal to was the songwriters are, and they start the writers and musicians. If I got the listening to country music itself with a right writers and musicians to come different ear. That’s also great because play there, the audiences would follow part of the mission of The Bluebird, them. The Bluebird is small. They can’t and of the songwriters’ community in BY MARK MILLER make the most money there. It doesn’t general, is to spread the word about Mark Miller is the Chief Strategy Officer at Team have a greenroom, and we don’t have songwriters, spread the word about One, an ad agency with global expertise and a fruit basket for them, but we gave country music. proprietary research in premium categories and aspirational consumers.

2015 5