Tag Archives: Bluebird-Cafe

Plant and Krauss Back In The Studio

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  • Country Standard Time and Rolling Stone posts that Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are back in the studio with T Bone Burnett working on the follow-up to their platinum-selling, five Grammy winning album Raising Sand.
  • Iron & Wine (aka Sam Beam) is readying Around the Well (due May 19 from Sub Pop) a compilation 23 rare and previously unreleased tracks. The double-disc set will be supported by a short May tour. For this tour, the group is asking fans to help shape the set lists through voting on IronandWine.com. Live recordings will be available shortly after each gig at PlayedLastNight.com. Meanwhile, Iron & Wine is hard at work on its next studio album, due in early 2010. (Billboard)
  • The Americana Music Association announces more artists have been added to the line-up for its “Live at The Bluebird Cafe” concert series.  On February 19, beautifully rich voice of Stephanie Chapman will join Jim Lauderdale.  The Sam Bush Band will take the stage on February 26. Nanci Griffith will perform in-the-round on March 5 with critically acclaimed artists Mary Gauthier and Elizabeth Cook. Award-winning, multi-talented songwriter Darrell Scott will headline on March 12. Foster & Lloyd close the series on March 26.


Billy Joe Shaver’s Bluebird Cafe 1992 Performance To Be Released On CD

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On September 11, Billy Joe Shaver will release a CD featuring his 1992 concert at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe titled “Storyteller: Live at the Bluebird 1992.”

The iconic, Texan-born Shaver, now aged 67, has had his share of run-ins with the law including shooting a man in the face. The man did not retain life threatening injuries and Shaver, after turning himself in, was charged with aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a handgun. After a court hearing, he was released on a $50,000 bond.

Along with being a country singer and songwriter he has also performed in movies including “The Wendell Baker Story,” “Secondhand Lions” and “The Apostle.”

Shaver is known among his peers as a survivor having lost his mother and wife to cancer in 1999 and his son in 2000 due to a drug overdose.

The new CD will be released through Sugar Hill Records.

Bluebird Cafe Celebrates 25th Anniversary

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The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, long a mainstay for singer/songwriters in Music City, will kick off a year-long celebration commemorating its 25th anniversary in May through a nationwide “Bluebird on the Road” tour to 12 cities later this year, a private birthday bash for Bluebird family and friends and a “Superstars of the Bluebird” series in June.

“I set out to open a restaurant 25 years ago, but the music quickly took over,” says owner Amy Kurland. “Nothing could be more special than celebrating this milestone year with some of the same songwriters who were regulars back when we first opened the doors.”

Those original songwriters and many more will be invited to attend a private birthday bash hosted by performing rights organization BMI on May 24. Later, the festivities will be open to the public when a 10-day series titled “Superstars of the Bluebird” takes residence starting June 1. Dierks Bentley is among those slated to appear.

The show will hit the road on a 12 city songwriter tour, kicking off in New York City at Joe’s Pub on May 31 with a few of the founders of the “In The Round” format that originated at the Bluebird; Fred Knobloch, Thom Schuyler, Tony Arata and Jelly Roll Johnson. Additional songwriters, cities and dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Garth Brooks’ record-shattering career began at the Bluebird, where a Capitol Records exec saw him substituting at the last minute for a performer who didn’t show up and promptly signed him. “In my opinion, the songwriter is the foundation of music,” Brooks once said, “and the Bluebird is the rock on which that foundation sits.”

Others who have played the Bluebird over the years include Melissa Etheridge, Steve Earle, the Cowboy Junkies, the Indigo Girls and the late Townes Van Zandt and Mickey Newbury. Vince Gill, Janis Ian, John Prine, Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, Raul Malo, Radney Foster and Pam Tillis also have played the room.