A new service has come to town, giving guests a chance to view Music City in a new light. Songbird Tours offers audiences of about 30 an experience that includes an intimate, in-the-round songwriter performance, as they hear behind-the-scenes stories of Nashville's most prolific songwriters, as well as rising newcomersall while getting a guided city tour curated by longtime music-industry insiders.
'I have always thought it was horrible that everybody thinks the artists on the radio write all those songs,” Patsy Bruce, CEO of Songbird tours, says. 'It leaves the songwriter out of the equation because, without a songwriter, we would not have the music business.”
The tour gives songwriters the credit that is due by giving guests the inside scoop on where and when hit songs were written. Emmy Award-winning songwriter Trey Bruce serves as creative officer and provides insight on how he has written multiple No. 1 singles with artists, such as Carrie Underwood, Faith Hill, Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, and ZZ Top.
'The education and trial by fire of a songwriter is something most people don't know about,” Trey Bruce says. 'They don't know that, in the best of times, 75 percent of songwriters aren't wealthy; they're just getting by. So, now, we have a chance to tell visitors what songwriters do and what they've done.”
Tours begin and end at Hayes Street (between 15th and 16th Avenues) near downtown Nashville. Tickets for the two-hour tour are $40. songbirdtours.com
Photos by Ed Rode.
As seen in the September issue
of Nashville Lifestyles!