Erin Enderlin takes a chair in the Bluebird's round for Songwriting With Soldiers

Next Thursday the Nashville writer shares the Bluebird Cafe's 90-seat room with Jay Clementi, Trent Willmon and James Slater for a benefit that lands right after Veterans Day.

At the Bluebird Cafe the stage is a circle of chairs in the middle of the floor, and the writers face each other rather than the crowd. Erin Enderlin takes one of those chairs on Thursday, November 12, and tickets for it went on sale this morning.

The night is billed as an In The Round with Jay Clementi, Erin Enderlin, Trent Willmon and James Slater, and it is a benefit for Songwriting With Soldiers, according to the TicketWeb listing. The music starts at 9 p.m., tickets are $27.63, and the room holds about 90 people, so it won't take long to fill.

The timing is deliberate. Songwriting With Soldiers pairs veterans with professional writers to turn their stories into songs, and its new album, *The Power of Being Heard*, comes out tomorrow, November 6, ahead of Veterans Day, as The Country Note reported. Both Enderlin and Willmon are among the writers on the project. So the Bluebird round falls the week the record is out, and it's a fair bet some of those songs get their first airing in that circle.

Enderlin plays Nashville more than any other city in our records, 36 shows and counting. That's what you'd expect from a writer whose career runs on this town's rooms rather than on arenas. Her own catalog is the kind of country that rewards a quiet listen, and a room where the bartender stops the blender during a song suits her. Her most recent full-length is *Whiskey Town Crier*. After that came the 2024 EP *Chapter One: Tonight I Don't Give a Damn*, which MusicRow covered on its release.

There's more on the way. Her AXS artist bio says she is recording a new project produced by Sunny Sweeney and Harley Husbands. No title or release date has been announced, so treat any new songs she plays at the Bluebird as previews, not singles.

Next to her in the round: Trent Willmon, a Texas-born writer and artist who is also on the Songwriting With Soldiers album; Jay Clementi; and James Slater, who has his own Bluebird page. In a round, each writer plays a song and passes to the next. The fun is in the handoffs: one song answers another, a harmony comes in from across the circle, and a writer tells the story behind a cut that somebody else took to radio.

A round is four writers trading songs, and the best moments are the ones nobody planned.

If you have never done the Bluebird, a benefit round is a good first visit. You're there for the songs, the cause is concrete, and four writers means you hear each one at their sharpest rather than padding out a full set. The cafe sits in a strip center out on Hillsboro Pike, and the address doesn't look like much. That's the point. Get there early, keep the talking down, and give the circle your full attention.

Sources: TicketWeb: In The Round with Jay Clementi, Erin Enderlin, Trent Willmon & James Slater; a benefit for Songwriting with Soldiers (ticketweb.com); The Country Note: The Power of Being Heard — SongwritingWith:Soldiers album out November 6 (thecountrynote.com); AXS: Erin Enderlin (axs.com); MusicRow: Erin Enderlin releases new EP Chapter One: Tonight I Don't Give A Damn (musicrow.com); American Songwriter: Erin Enderlin feature (americansongwriter.com); The Bluebird Cafe: James Slater (bluebirdcafe.com); Wikipedia: Trent Willmon (en.wikipedia.org); JamBase show listing (jambase.com); Bluebird Cafe - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)