For local songwriters, the Bloomington Songwriter Showcase provides an attentive audience every Tuesday night. Songwriters Tim McNary, Ralph Ed Jeffers, Pablo Adams and Greg O’Haver will take the stage at 8 p.m. tonight at Bear’s Place.
The artists are representative of the usual styles displayed at the showcase: a mix of folk, Americana and country. Of the four artists performing, McNary is the only new singer in the program.
Songwriter and founder of the showcase Suzette Weakley said she based the showcase off of the format of a showcase in Nashville, Tennessee, when touring with a band she formed with a close friend.
“I thought Nashville, Tennessee, is really quite a bit like Bloomington, Indiana,” Weakley said. “I mean, it’s a bigger-city version, but it’s really close to here. It kind of has the same artistic mindset where you’ve got professors and doctors and cab drivers and street people, and everybody writes music.”
While Weakley still performs in the showcase a few times a year, now she is in charge of booking the artists and acting as the show’s hostess. She said she met Steev Wisher and Brandon Pfeiffer, who also help with the show, through the program as fellow songwriters. The three took charge of the showcase’s responsibilities when others could no longer carry out the job.
“Suzette does a great job of booking all the artists for the showcase, but it takes a lot of time to book because we have four different writers every week,” said Pfeiffer, who helps with booking, promoting and the web aspect of the showcase. “And so Steev and myself have been trying to help her to take some of that load off of her shoulders.”
Pfeiffer said the unique thing about the program is all styles of music are welcome in the showcase.
“It’s a good place for songwriters to get to hear other songwriters and get to hear what other people are doing and playing and get inspiration and encouragement,” he said. “I really enjoy being a part of it, because I get to hear what other local songwriters are doing and then it motivates me to keep creating.”
The showcase features four different artists each week performing in the round, meaning they each take turns playing an original song.
Pfeiffer said this allows the songwriters to make a deeper connection with the audience, as well as with one another.
“It’s fun, too, because when you come to the showcase, by the end of the evening you have a really good sense of the personality or the characteristics of the four different performers,” he said. “So by the end of the performance, they’re making jokes onstage and it kind of allows the audience to feel more connected because they’re hearing stories that are about the songs, and they’re getting a more raw or real sense of who that person, who that songwriter is, more than just how their music sounds.”
Weakley said humor will likely play a role in this week’s lineup.
“Ralph Ed Jeffers and Pablo Adams play together fairly often, so that could be pretty funny,” she said. “Ralph has a great sense of humor once he gets started.”
Weakley said the only compensation the writers receive for the showcase is a meal and a share of the tip jar.
“If they’re going to make a mortgage payment with what they make at the Bloomington Songwriter Showcase, they’re screwed,” she said. “They’re there because they love what they do.”
