Bluebird Cafe 7/10 (RB, Tim, Anne, Rich)

Tonight had RB Morris, Tim Carroll (Elizabeth Cook’s husband), Anne McCue (bad-ass guitar-playing adorable gal) and Rich McCulley playing in the round at the Bluebird Café in Nashville. As stoger put it at the end of the evening: “There’s was a lot of talent in the middle of the room tonight.”

I mainly came for Anne, but left being blown away by Tim’s songwriting. Each artist played a song, acoustic, and they went clockwise (per Anne’s gentle guidance), with everyone playing about five (six?) songs each. Anne wore a bowler hat with long pig-tail braids framing her face. I won’t recount the four set lists, but, other than one song, Anne played all new material from her upcoming fall album “Blue Sky Thinking,” which everyone needs to buy or pre-order immediately. Apparently, she wrote much of the album with Ruthless Johnny Wales (sp?), who was in the house drinking Lagunita’s IPAs (he has excellent taste in beer) and wearing a tee shirt that declared “I Believe in Nashville.” After Anne’s song “If You Seek Revenge, Dig Two Graves” (I don’t know the exact title), Rich said “Damn, that Anne McCue can play guitar!” True, that. Best song title of the night by Anne: “It Wasn’t Even Fun While It Lasted.”

Tim did a beautiful version of “Til Then”(the last track off of Elizabeth Cook’s album ‘Welder’), and I thoroughly enjoyed his songs “Great Time to Talk to God,” “Grandpa’s Got the Marshall Out Again” and “They Say We Don’t Make Nuthin’ in the USA, but we Still Make Rock & Roll” (damn straight!). Best line from ‘Til Then: “What are we gonna do till our dreams come true, What’ll we do till then?” Also, neither stoger nor I knew that he wrote the song “If I Could Then I Would.” You definitely know it. YouTube it.

Odds and ends:

Best Song Intro: Anne introducing a song as “the first song I wrote about a ménage a trois” (emphasis added). 8)

Best Reference to a Chinese Philosopher: Confucius, by Anne (bonus points if you can spot the song reference above).

Interesting Non-Music Plug of the Evening: In place of a song, RB Morris read his poem “God Soundcheck” from his book of poetry called “Mockingbird,” which apparently has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize (!!).

Weirdest Observation: Both RB and Lucinda pronounce the word “poem” the same way, with an emphasis on the “o” and the “e”… I’ve tried to imitate the pronunciation, but can’t quite do it. Must be a raised-in-the-south thing?

You-Don’t-Hear-a-Song-About-That-Everyday Award: Rich’s song called “I Wish I Was an Apricot.”

This show reminded me, once again, why live music is my church. Vivian