The Bluebird Café is a 90-seat cafe and music venue in Green Hills, Nashville, Tennessee. The cafe features acoustic music performances and receives over 70,000 visitors annually.[2]
Amy Kurland, a former waitress, opened the Bluebird Café on June 3, 1982, using an inheritance she received from her grandmother.[1] Initially, it was intended to be just a cafe, but Kurland agreed to allow friends to provide live music. The cafe became a loud late-night location for Nashville musicians. After the cafe hosted a "writer's night" to benefit World Hunger Year, the event became a regular fixture at the cafe, giving local songwriters a chance to showcase their latest work acoustically.[1][3]
In March 1983, future country star Kathy Mattea received a recording contract after playing at the cafe regularly for seven months.[4]
After the female songwriters noted that most of the songwriters performing were men, in 1988, they launched "Women In The Round"; regular performers included Pam Tillis, Karen Staley, Ashley Cleveland, and Trisha Walker.[5][6]
Also in 1988, Garth Brooks received a recording contract after a performance at the cafe; he had been turned down by the same label a week earlier.[1]
In 1999, Turner South aired a program called Live from the Bluebird Café, which built awareness for the cafe.[8][9]
The Bluebird Café Scrapbook, written by Kurland, was published in 2002. It is a history of the club, its writers, events, and employees, as told by the writers, employees, and other witnesses.[10]
The cafe is also referenced in "Somewhere North of Nashville" (2019) by Bruce Springsteen.
The cafe is referenced in the Foo Fighters song "Congregation", released in October 2014.[15] On May 7, 2014, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl performed an hour-long surprise solo acoustic set at the cafe.[16]
