Our Story
In The Making
In October 2022 I went to Jonesborough, Tennessee, to attend the International Storytelling Center’s annual festival. It was there, 52 years ago that Jerry Clower jumped up on a hay wagon in front of the wall with the Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco sign and told a story to no more than 60 people at their first storytelling event. Clower went on to become a stand up comedian and member of the Grand Ole Opry alongside Minnie Pearl.
When our twin sons graduated from UT in December 2022 Deltah and I agreed it was time to launch our 2.0 for our careers.
In January 2023 I drove to Hiltons, Virginia and traced the path from the home of Maybelle Carter and The Carter Family Fold to Bristol, Tennessee, approximately 20 miles away. In Bristol I toured the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.
Jeff and his brother Scott secure bardroom.com domain name.
During this time I had the great fortune of meeting Max T. Barnes. He was hired to be the expert for a probate case in which my client’s father had the earliest known studio recordings of Tammy Wynette. Max T. Barnes and his dad Max D. Barnes wrote 33 #1 songs for the likes of John Anderson (being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame 10/20/2024), George Jones, Conway Twitty, Merle Haggard, Collin Raye, Pam Tillis, Randy Travis, Joe Diffie, Vern Gosdin, Vince Gill, Keith Whitley, and many more. Apart from being a world class songwriter Max T. Barnes is a world class musician, playing lead guitar and sharing the stage with the likes of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, Linda Davis, Tanya Tucker, Bobby Bare and others. Max’s guitar work is prominently featured in the LeAnn Rimes song “How Do I Live?”
Max D. Barnes wrote “Chiseled In Stone” for Vern Gosdin and won Country Music Association’s highest award with Song of the Year in 1989. The following link shows the acceptance speech. Max D. Barnes tells how he took the personal grief of his son’s death by auto accident and channeled the grief into a song. Out of tragedy came new growth and art to be appreciated by the world with an impactful and emotional song. Watch the 1989 Annual Country Music Awards.
Max introduced me to his young protege Austin Moody. Austin is an up and coming country singer. In May 2023 he had the #4 country song on country radio.
Max, Austin and I began producing shows at 3rd and Lindsley and The Texas Troubadour Theater. We also produced a writer’s workshop in world famous Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Max T. and Austin Moody performed at the Nashville Speedway for the annual hot rod car show that is the third leg of a national car show where 40,000 attendees come annually. I tagged along.
In August 2023 Max and I produced the show VernFest honoring the late Vern Gosdin whose music catalogue is full of songs written by the Barnes father and son songwriting duo. Famous country artists such as Linda Davis and Johnny Rodriguez performed along with Max T. and his band The Bloody Turnips. Band members Paul Holowell (piano player for Dolly Parton) and Steve Hinson (steel guitar player for Vern Gosdin and house band member of the Grand Ole Opry) performed. His band also includes child prodigy singer and performer Colleen Gallagher (who toured 12 years with Loretta Lynn) and her husband Jim Gallagher on the drums.
We visited various radio stations to promote the show including WSM 650, home of the Grand Ole Opry, with Hall of Fame deejay Bill Cody, and local station Y’ALL 106.7 with Eryn Cooper. Live interviews on WSMV 4 and WKRN 2 were also done to promote the show.
In October 2023 we went to Ireland where Max performed with Trudi Lalor, one of the top female singers in the country, where they performed the hits of George Jones and Tammy Wynette. While there we toured various Irish pubs to draw inspiration for what The Bard Room will look like.
My brother Scott, his wife Jeanette, and our cousin Bobbie and Aunt Molena spent many hours discussing the development of The Bard Room concept.
At every chance I spent time in the recording studio with Max and Austin.
An introduction was made to the band 615 Collective. In November 2023 my law office produced the song for their band “Brothers of the Highway.” Nicole Witt is the lead singer and she wrote the song honoring her father who spent his career in the trucking business. It was an easy decision to produce this song because my father was a truck driver who got injured on the job which inspired me to become a lawyer. Max T.’s dad was a truck driver early in his career.
In July 2023 I attended the AAJ annual conference in Philadelphia where I was able to scope out the CLE that was coming to Nashville in July 2024. While there I rented a car and drove to Nazareth, Pennsylvania and I toured the Martin Guitar Factory, one of the main instruments used by many country music artists and songwriters. I bought a guitar that will hang on the wall of the green room at The Bard Room.
In May 2024 I was invited to a private show in Nashville with Austin Moody, Max T. Barnes and Justin Weaver (lead guitar player for Wynonna Judd) to honor the marriage of General Eric Little, former commander of White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. See the black and white photo.
General Little invited me to come spend the weekend with him and some friends on the base and we were given a private tour of Ground Zero where the first atomic bomb was developed and detonated. This tour occurred ten days before the release of the film “Oppenheimer.”
In September 2023 Austin and I flew to Colorado where Austin performed at the wedding ceremony and reception of General Little and his bride Jessie.
In February 2024 Laurie Goodman came to Nashville and together we attended shows at Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar, The Listening Room and Station Inn, immersing herself in Nashville’s rich and diverse music scene. While at the Blues and Boogie Bar the performer played “Every Time I Roll The Dice,” a well known country/blues song made famous by Delbert McClinton and written by Max D. Barnes. The song is regularly performed by contestants on the tv show The Voice. Laurie Goodman accepted the position as Director of the Bard Room.
In March 2024 Max T. Barnes, Laurie Goodman and I were invited by John Romano to speak at the Florida Trial Lawyers’ annual Workhorse seminar in Orlando, Florida. We presented a 90 minute symposium on storytelling along with Francis Ford Coppola, legendary movie director.
In May 2024, Jeff and Max sponsored John Romano's Connectionology® Seminar in Nashville.
May 2024, Max T. Barnes and his band the Bloody Turnips played at the Country Music Hall of Fame for Connectionology®.
In June 2024 a great honor was bestowed when I was selected by WSM to carry forward the tradition of lending my voice to introducing the Grand Ole Opry every night in the tradition of the late great George Hay who made famous the line “Let ‘er Go, Boys!” as the big red curtain on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry goes up.
The Summer and Fall of 2024 was filled with attending numerous performances at the Grand Ole Opry.
In July 2024 I attended a weeklong storytelling workshop with Donald Davis, world famous storyteller, in LaGrange, Georgia. I was selected to tell the story of the Lost Tapes of Tammy Wynette to the townsfolk who come in the last evening of the workshop to hear the storytellers’ yarns.
In July 2024 I was invited by John Romano to share remarks about the Bard Room at the Melvin Belli Gala during the AAJ Summer meeting held at The Hermitage Hotel in Nashville.
In July 2024, the Bard Room was joined by the Metier Law Office and Metwork to sponsor Max T. Barnes and Marty Haggard along with Austin Moody and The Neon High at 3rd & Lindsley for a final evening of live entertainment at the AAJ Seminar.
In September 2024, I became an Honor Society member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.