Playing the Bluebird Cafe, November 2017

As wandering minstrels, we sometimes take advantage of open mic situations to test our ukulele tunes on new, receptive, non-judgmental audiences. There is a small club in Nashville called The Bluebird Cafe that has launched the careers of many a singer-songwriter and hosts intimate concerts by established and rapidly rising stars. It is hard to get tickets for these performances, but their web page had a tab labeled, "how to play". We pressed it out of curiosity and discovered they have an open mic on Mondays. Realizing we would arrive in Nashville on a Monday, we double-dared each other to play at the famous Bluebird. To get on the list, you have to phone them on the very Monday you wish to play and they take the first 25 callers. That Monday we were driving from Arkansas, but we pulled off the freeway shortly before the appointed time of 11:00am, hoping we actually had figured the time zone correctly. With the number punched into the phone and a finger on the dial button, we watched the clock strike 11:00 and pressed call. The first try resulted in a recorded message about no one being available. We hung up and immediately dialed again – too late, it was busy. Tried again, busy. Dialed again, again, again for 20 minutes and suddenly got a voice at the other end. (Uh, oh!) Hello, we'd like to play on your open mic and yes, we can be there at 5:15. Gulp – we were in!

Queing up at the Bluebird Cafe

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur – something about driving 100 miles, checking in at our RV park, finding The Bluebird early enough to park the RV on a nearby street, drinking coffee, changing clothes and collecting our ukuleles. It all comes into focus again as we stood in the brisk, gathering darkness on the sidewalk outside The Bluebird chatting with other musicians for about half an hour before being ushered inside. We nervously found one of the small tables up front labeled "Reserved for Songwriters and Guests", pulled out our instruments to let them warm up and tucked our cases under our chairs. We glanced at some sort of menu in the half light and politely ordered a snack and water, though neither of us could eat. The event ran like clockwork and we were assigned slot number 15. Each musician popped onto the low stage in front of bright lights, plugged in the dangling cord, adjusted the mic and gave us one song. Some folks had lots of poise and experience, others bravely gave it their all, and everyone was rewarded with sincere applause. For our part, we performed "Island Sun" and it seemed that we really had them under our spell! There was a good show of appreciation and lots of kind remarks whispered afterwards. We felt good. A few folks had their names drawn to play again, including us. In honor of the upcoming holidays we concluded with "An Island Christmas" and were rewarded with similar enthusiasm. When the open mic was over, we filed back out into the cold, black Nashville night, each breathing a sigh of equal parts gratitude and relief.

The big moment