Regarding the Bluebird Cafe and Taylor Swift

nsavides — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 02:16:36 +0000

Brian A. Loschiavo, the director-producer-editor of the Bluebird documentary, was first exposed to The Bluebird Cafe through the show Nashville, a series for which he developed supplemental digital content. The now iconic country-music venue that has been instrumental to the careers of so many musicians including Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, and Taylor Swift made enough of an impression on Brian that he set out to create a documentary about the place and the community of singer-songwriters it has nurtured over the years.

Bluebird premiered at SXSW 2019 but had a stronger reception at Nashville Film Festival several months later, where festival organizers ended up giving it four screenings to accommodate audience interest. I saw the film while attending the Nashville Film Festival and got to interview Brian there.

Some of the things we discuss include

How he was able to get a number of prominent musicians like Taylor Swift to be in his film
Why The Bluebird Cafe is such a memorable venue
The challenges of shooting and/or performing in a confined space

Commentary

After I did the interview, certain subsequent news stories involving Taylor Swift came out, and they did affect my take on the film. Since Taylor Swift was prominently featured in the Bluebird documentary and discussed in my interview with Brian, I decided to do a supplemental commentary track to expand on my thoughts about her and how she affected my interpretation of the documentary.

Playlist

Here’s the playlist I put together of related songs, some of which I discovered while exploring the musicians featured in the film. Others are songs I revisited while trying to rekindle the magical spark of inspiration that is the Nashville music scene.

Sponsors for this Episode

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I make friendly, engaging videos for earnest people. Some of my videos are here.

I want to get better at connecting with others, so I’m putting together a couple of videos as an experiment. This is the one I made while attending the Nashville Film Festival, and it does include a photo of me and Brian.

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My MasterClass recommendations for this episode

Ken Burns, the filmmaker behind the Country Music docuseries, shares his insights about capturing nuanced human drama on screen.

Reba McEntire shares her insights on country music and building a music career.

Related Episode

I liked Bluebird enough to include it in my top five picks from Nashville Film Festival 2019. In this episode, I elaborate on why I picked it and share my other recommendations from the festival.