Jim and I went to the Grand Opening show at the new Listening Room Cafe in downtown Nashville a couple weeks ago. Jim's parents were in town, and they had a great time at the show with us.

You may recall, I've written about the Listening Room Cafe in Franklin, TN before. Well, they recently closed the Franklin Listening Room Cafe and moved everything to its new Nashville location.

Fortunately, Nashville is only a short drive from Franklin (where we live), so I'm sure we'll still be regular visitors at the Listening Room Cafe. Plus, it's also a great place to take guests who are in town visiting.

Following are photos and highlights from the first big show at Nashville's Listening Room Cafe featuring:

Tony Mullins

Bob DiPiero

Chris Wallin

Aaron Barker

I guess you could say, 'We knew them when.'

Well, not really... These guys (Jeffrey Steele, Bob DiPiero, Tony Mullins and Craig Wisemen) wouldn't be able to pick Jim & I out in a crowd or anything. I guess we just feel like we knew them way back when... before they were 'famous'.

Which really isn't fair to say either, because these guys were Rockin' & Rollin' and singin' the Blues looonnng before our first time seeing them perform together as a group at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville.

We've actually seen each of them performing individually (or sometimes, or with one or another of The Hitmen) several times at various places in and around Nashville and Franklin, Tennessee.

And thanks to GAC, you probably have a better appreciation for these guys and their music, too. (Not to mention their amazing -- and offbeat -- sense of humor!)

I was just searching around the Net for their schedule. I was hoping we might be able to catch them performing as The Hitmen of Music Row somewhere soon.

Then I figured that I may as well share all of the cool sites and information I found with everyone here...

After a 5-month hiatus from songwriter nights (for no reason), we went to the Bluebird Cafe for an "in the round" line-up of songwriters that we could not pass up:

This is "the year of Craig Wiseman"... in terms of songwriting, that is.

It seems every song he pens these days becomes a mega-hit by some popular superstar, like Tim McGraw ("Live Like You Were Dying", "Where the Green Grass Grows", "The Cowboy in Me"), Kenny Chesney ("The Good Stuff", "Just Another Day in Paradise", "Young"), or Phil Vassar ("Just Another Day In Paradise", "American Child").

I long for the day that it becomes commonplace to see and hear the name of the songwriter, in addition to the singer on all music radio and video channels!

Country Music video channels -- like CMT and GAC -- currently include the name of the songwriter next to the singer for every video played. But other video channels -- like MTV and VH1 -- have yet to follow suit. And there isn't ONE radio station around that gives props to the songwriter when their song is played.

Maybe it's because I'm from Nashville and I "know" a lot of the songwriters who pen many of today's hits (mostly Country; some Pop)... but I find myself getting more and more frustrated with "the system" each time I hear a new tune on the radio, and I'm left wondering who might have written that particular song. Much to my dismay, the DJ usually zips right into another song -- OFTEN times mentioning the singer, but NEVER mentioning the writer!

When it comes to music, we're all across the board. But one thing's for sure: We're always looking for new singers and songwriters to become acquainted with!

Here's an eclectic listing of the concerts we've been to, our favorite singers and songwriters, and the reasons we're glad to live in Nashville - Music City USA.

Here's a collection of Tony Mullins photographs taken at Puckett's Grocery in Leiper's Fork, Tennessee and at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tennessee: