Bloomington Songwriter Showcase at Players Pub

Three independent performers rest upon evenly-spaced bar stools, taking turns strumming their guitars and singing their hearts out.

Scott Freed, Adam James and Brandon Pfeiffer performed Monday at the Players Pub as part of the Bloomington Songwriter Showcase.

“I think it’s very good for songwriters to have some sort of venue, an outlet for themselves,” Freed said. “There is limited support for that kind of thing, so any place that is willing to let songwriters get up and do their thing is good for the songwriters.”

Freed is a Brown County resident, manager of Chateau Thomas Winery in Nashville, Ind., and established singer-songwriter. He has performed with the Bloomington showcase multiple times, in addition to putting on his own songwriter series Sundays at the Chateau.

“I’m at an age right now where I don’t think too much about fame or fortune or being discovered, but there is still a lot of room for that in the younger musicians,” Freed said.

James might be the embodiment of this very notion. An up-and-coming musician based out of Nashville, Tenn., he is working to obtain a publishing contract to become a paid songwriter and performer.

“I want to perform,” James said. “But especially now, if you can get backing from a publishing company, they do wonders for your artistic career as well.”

The Bloomington Songwriter Showcase was originally founded by a group of local songwriters who understood the importance of bringing an audience to composers.

“This is really an interesting thing because there are a lot of musicians that come and sit in the audience, and they actually listen,” group founder and organizer Dave McConnell said. “A lot of times when you go play in bars, nobody listens, nobody’s paying any attention, so it’s very different to have people actually pay attention to your stuff.”

McConnell is one of several founding members, including Suzette Weakley, Bobbie Lancaster and Marc Haggerty.

“All of the organizers work for nothing,” McConnell said. “Everything we do is to put it together and have a place for songwriters to play. Everybody that’s an organizer is also a songwriter and a musician, so there is kind of a selfish motive there, too.”

For founders and performers alike, the most vital aspect of a singer-songwriter performance is conveying a message, an exchange of human emotion occurring between chord changes in relatable lyrics and tone.

“They all have something to say, and they need an audience,” Players Pub owner Greg Hill said. “And I’m honored to provide that place.”

Haggerty’s music is about telling the untold stories of Bloomington, including the origins of the countercultural music scene on campus in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

“The music that we had here was as good as anything anywhere, and it was original music,” Haggerty said. “All of the music was on campus — we had Alumni Hall, Briscoe Cafeteria and Dunn Meadow. At that time, the music that came out of here was so cross-cultural, everything from some kind of jazz to Frank Zappa to very deep local country roots.”

The presence of this legendary music scene inspired the first early assembly of a Bloomington Songwriter Showcase.

“We had sprung out of all of this Bloomington music and everything,” Haggerty said. “Frank Hall started the original songwriter’s showcase back in the early ’80s, and he booked people including me and Suzette. So this all started at the old library and this (current showcase series) was a continuation of that effort, and a lot of people that come here actually attended those things in the ’80s.”

Three and a half years ago, the organizers approached Hill, who agreed to host the series from 8 to 10 p.m. every Monday.

“When we started it off, me and Dave, Marc and Bobby, we had to go home and write songs to fill the space,” Weakley said. “Ultimately, it became a pretty steady Monday night. The founders now only get to do three shows a year.”

The founders decided to take an alternate approach to seemingly standard acoustic performances by making all performers remain on stage throughout the concert. This allows the musicians to collaborate, singing harmonies and playing accompanying guitar melodies freely, giving the shows a very casual ambiance.

“The singer-songwriters is much more the vision that I had for the pub than the loud jam,” Hill said. “I am flattered at the level of talent that comes through here, and all I do is provide them a meal — they play for tips.”

As the showcase has increased in popularity, Weakley has extended the group’s mission, starting the Blooming-Tunes Singer Songwriter Competition, which is currently taking submissions.

Weakley attributes the showcase’s rise in popularity with the laid-back atmosphere of the venue.

“I see a triangle of health that is equal-sided — mental, emotion and physical,” Hill said. “To me, this is where you can come to let your hair down, put your hair up, make a friend or meet a friend, get a good meal and listen to music. Music does soothe the soul, so for me it’s that mind-body-spirit connection.”