History

Amy Kurland opens The Bluebird Cafe as a 100-seat restaurant in a small strip mall, five miles from downtown Nashville.While her focus was to serve lunch and dinner, Kurland adds a small stage and involves friends with music venue experience to help book bands after the dinner crowd.  Music becomes a part of the Cafe's repertoire.

Blue Monday, fronted by vocalist Roguie Ray, begins a weekly Monday Night blues band tradition at The Bluebird Cafe.  During his time, Ray along with band members, Eddie Blakely, Jimmy Greasy, Billy Earl McClelland, Johnny Neel and Dave Pomeroy, hosted many of the music industry great players such as Greg Allman, Dickey Betts, Lenny Breau, Steve Cropper, Vince Gill, Jimmy Hall, Dave Mason, Dee Murray, David Olney & Wynonna.

T. Graham Brown’s first performance.

The Sweethearts of the Rodeo appear for the first time with Don Schlitz. They get a record deal on Columbia Records. The Bluebird gets mentioned in The New York Times.

Carol Elliot brings a group of the best local talent from Atlanta. That group includes The Indigo Girls.

• Mike Henderson starts a weekly performance with The Kingsnakes (shortened to The Snakes after being signed to Curb Records), with Kenny Greenberg, Wally Wilson, Glenn Worf, John Gardner & Bill Swartz (later replaced by James Stroud).• A second incarnation, The Bluebloods, replaces the Snakes in 1986. Originally a trio featuring Henderson, John Gardner, & Glenn Worf, the addition of keyboards to the ‘Bloods brought such luminaries to the band over time including Al Kooper, Greg Wetzel, Reese Wynans and later, John Jarvis.• Currently on Monday nights, The Bluebird hosts The Mike Henderson Band with Henderson, Willie Domann and Kevin McKendree.

• Jonell Mosser’s first appearance at The Bluebird Cafe. • Garth Brooks performs at The Bluebird. Due to a cancellation, his performance is moved up in the program and Lynn Schults from Capitol Records is in the audience. Shults takes Garth into the kitchen and asks him to come to Capitol the next day to offer him a deal. Years later, Garth says, “The Bluebird is the beginning and the mecca, the end.”

The Cowboy Junkies come through on their first tour.

Janis Ian performs her first Bluebird ITR.

Kenny Chesney passes his Bluebird audition.

• The Bluebird Cafe is the setting for the movie The Thing Called Love starring River Phoenix, K.T. Oslin, Samantha & Sandra Bullock. Amy Kurland is quoted several times by Oslin’s character.• Keith Urban passes his Bluebird audition.

The Bluebird Cafe partners with the Disney Institute to present songwriters performances on the Disney property in Orlando, FL.

Nashville’s First Amendment Center begins an annual “Freedom Sings” show, a celebration of freedom of expression through music.

Turner South network begins broadcasting a program called “Live from the Bluebird Cafe” which features songwriters performing many well-known original works. The show runs for five years, although is never broadcast in Nashville.

Kelly Collom proposes to owner Amy Kurland in the round with a song he co-wrote with Billy Dean.

• Dreamworks Records’ Scott Borchetta sees 15 year old Taylor Swift perform for the first time and invites her to be a part of his new venture – a label to be called Big Machine Label Group.• The Bluebird Cafe partners with Vanderbilt’s Dyer Observatory to present an annual outdoor concert series, Bluebird on the Mountain.

Original owner and founder Amy Kurland transfers ownership of the legendary venue to the Nashville Songwriters Association International. More of a donation than a corporate sale, Kurland saw NSAI’s mission to “educate, elevate and celebrate songwriters” as a way to continue the Bluebird’s relationship to songwriters and to the community.

Garth Brooks is inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York where he is quoted as saying, “You might think this [induction] is it, but trust me, the way The Bluebird is run, the songwriters are king. If the whole entertainment world understood that, we’d all be so much better off, because they get it.”

Toby Keith performs at The Bluebird Cafe with co-writers Scotty Emerick & Bobby Pinson as part of The Birdsongs series. The show was a benefit for The Bluebird – the proceeds provide needed bathrooms upgrades.