8 Tennessee rooms I’d play again tomorrow
I live in Middle Tennessee, so most of my playing happens within a few hours’ drive. These are the rooms I keep thinking about, ranked by how much I’d want to go back.
A few of these came through Tennessee Songwriters Week, the state’s February songwriting showcase, which runs qualifying rounds at more than 60 venues every year. If you write songs in Tennessee, sign up.
Number 8
The Franklin Theatre
- Where
- Franklin, TN
- When I was there
- Spring 2026
A restored old theatre on Franklin’s Main Street. I came for a Songwriters Week showcase and stayed for dinner on Main Street. It’s an easy drive from Nashville and a great first theatre gig.
Number 7
Whiskey Jam at Winners
- Where
- Nashville, TN
- When I was there
- Most Thursdays, at one point
Whiskey Jam is a free weekly showcase at Winners in Midtown, and it’s loud, packed, and fun. It’s not a listening room, so bring your most upbeat song, but you’ll meet half the writers in town in one night.
Number 6
The Bijou Theatre
- Where
- Knoxville, TN
- When I was there
- Winter 2026
A historic theatre in downtown Knoxville that hosts the Songwriters Week showcase in East Tennessee. Playing an old theatre is a different feeling: the room carries your voice for you.
Number 5
Barrelhouse Ballroom
- Where
- Chattanooga, TN
- When I was there
- February 2026
Another Songwriters Week showcase, and a beautiful room. It feels like playing in somebody’s very nice living room, and the drive up through the mountains to get there doesn’t hurt.
Number 4
Lafayette’s Music Room
- Where
- Memphis, TN
- When I was there
- February 2026
I played a Tennessee Songwriters Week showcase here, and it’s one of the best-run stages I’ve been on. Great sound and a Memphis crowd that’s warmer and louder than Nashville’s.
A Memphis crowd will tell you exactly how your song landed.
Number 3
Love & Exile
- Where
- East Nashville, TN
- When I was there
- Tin Pan South 2025
One of the newer rooms in town and already one of my favorites. I played it during Tin Pan South, and it has that East Nashville feel: relaxed, a little scruffy, and full of people who write songs themselves.
Number 2
The Listening Room Cafe
- Where
- Nashville, TN
- When I was there
- Fall 2025
A few blocks off Lower Broadway in SoBro, and the opposite of a Broadway honky-tonk. It started in Franklin in 2006 and now runs songwriter rounds most nights, with great sound and a crowd that came for the songs.
Go on a Song Suffragettes night, their weekly all-female round. Some of the best writing in town.
Number 1
The Bluebird Cafe
- Where
- Nashville, TN
- When I was there
- Spring 2025
Everybody knows the name, and it earns it. It’s a tiny strip-mall room, about 90 seats, that’s been launching songwriters since the early ’80s, and the crowd is there to listen, not to talk over you.
Writers sit in the round in the middle of the room and take turns. Getting a slot takes patience, but it’s the room every songwriter in this state is chasing for a reason.
The quietest 90 seats in Tennessee. You can hear someone set a glass down.