Storytelling Through Song

Fifteen miles north of downtown, once you’ve shed all the traffic lights and strip malls, a tin-roofed barn resides next to a general store that sells crab traps, cast-iron skillets, and a collar for your bird dog. On Folly Beach, string lights sway over a patio two blocks from the surf, packed shoulder to shoulder most Mondays before the first note even plays. And on Percy Street, in downtown Charleston, in a bar the size of a shotgun house, a cowhide rug hangs from the ceiling over a room of 40 people, taciturn enough to hear a guitar string breathe.

Each of these buildings has become one of Charleston's living rooms: the unassuming corners where a songwriter goes from a stranger with a notebook to a name.

Barn Jam at Awendaw Green

For 18 years running, rain or shine, a crowd has gathered every Wednesday night under a barn roof off Highway 17 in Awendaw, population 1,406, for a multi-genre original music showcase. Eddie White, dentist by day, launched Barn Jam in summer 2008, when a touring artist's 30-odd friends needed a venue, and White had a barn. He put up a sign on the road that read "Barn Jam, take a right," and it stuck. The idea sprouted when White's son Clay was in middle school playing in the Whisper Jets, and people began gathering to listen to Wednesday night band practice.

There’s one rule: original music only. "I thought it was about the music, but it's really about getting people off their couch to meet people around music," White says. Five acts grace the stage starting around 5:30 p.m. and play until 10. BYOB, bring your kids, dogs on a leash, and enjoy wood-fired pizzas and handmade goods from local artisans. Awendaw Green sits next to Sewee Outpost, which closes at 7 p.m., so you can grab refreshments next door. Admission is $10, which goes straight to the traveling artists, or free for kids under 12. Every week since 2008, graphic designer Gil Shuler has designed Barn Jam’s weekly poster, pro bono—his outlet for original art.

White has hosted the famous and the not-yet-famous in equal measure, often without knowing which was which at the time. Tyler Childers opened for Town Mountain more than a decade ago. The Red Clay Strays played the barn four or five times around 2018, sleeping in White's bunkhouse and showering outdoors between sets. "This is going to be a world-famous band," White told the crowd after their first song. Cary Ann Hearst also played the barn before she formed Shovels & Rope.

What keeps White going is a tidbit of advice from his friend Peter Holsapple, who’s played with everyone from R.E.M to Hootie and the Blowfish. "You have to understand, without young bands, you'll never have old bands." White has taken that as gospel. "An inch of opportunity creates a yard of art," says White. @awendawgreen

Foxy G's Soapbox at Chico Feo

At Chico Feo on Folly Beach, Monday nights belong to Foxy G's Soapbox, hosted by George Fox (singer/songwriter in Big Stoner Creek and the Hopeaholics). In May 2020, a day after quitting his job at Lowe’s mid-pandemic to pursue music as a professional musician again, Fox walked into Bert's Market for a 12-pack of beer when Chico Feo owner Hank Weed asked if he'd host open mic night. Fox's only condition was that it be reserved for original work. The first Soapbox open mic ran in August. Open mic starts at 7 p.m. and may wind down around 9 p.m., but the bar stays open until 2 a.m., and Bert's Market next door never closes.

Two rules: original material, and nothing promoting hate. ‘Original’ is a loose category and can translate to creative self-expression through song, poetry, comedy, or magic acts. "Nobody ever gets a no," Fox says. "You might get a 'not tonight,' but you can do it next time." What draws people, he thinks, is an audience willing to sit with something unfamiliar. "If you're coming to the Soapbox, your mind is open, your heart is open to seeing what somebody's got to say and do."

The wildest night, by Fox's own account, involved a fire spinner named Drea, her partner Basil (both dressed like mimes), and a regular known in summer as Speedo Nate performing a ballad in a cowboy hat and Speedo while flames spun beside the stage. Weed called from home, having watched it on the security camera. "Never again," he says. Fox obliged.

Songwriter Jack Fortune used the Soapbox to find his voice before landing a national tour and opening for Stop Light Observations. Meredith Foster debuted “Dear Dive Bar” when it was merely a song. Six years in, Fox credits the setting of Chico Feo as much as anything: no televisions competing for attention, the ocean two blocks away, and a ramshackle patio that, in his words, "there's no place like home." @chicofeos

Dear Dive Bar at Elliotborough Mini Bar

Foster moved to Charleston in the summer of 2021 and discovered Elliotborough Mini Bar within weeks, drawn in by its Wednesday open mic night and regulars. The owner gave her a key at the end of the first night so she could come in and write songs during the day.

After playing an "In the Round" set at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe, she brought the format home as the concept behind Dear Dive Bar (DBB): two songwriters and Foster herself, unplugged, trading songs and stories from the center of a 900-square-foot room while a silent crowd of 40 looks on. Foster and DDB co-founder Amanda Russell share matching WWDD (What Would Dolly Do?) tattoos and hosted the first DDB in February 2023.

Foster has taken the stage at nearly every room in town: Awendaw Green, Chico Feo, Windjammer, Royal American, and the Pour House, among them. "Barn Jam was the first time in my entire life I played a full set of original music by myself," Foster says of the November 2021 show. She now splits her time between Charleston and Nashville, where she's based full time, balancing a songwriting career alongside a corporate marketing job.

DDB is now in its sixth season. Curating the lineup, Foster says, comes down to one thing above talent. "We pick people who are really passionate about being a songwriter, sharing their stories, and interacting with an audience." Every song performed must be one the artist wrote or co-wrote; covers aren’t allowed. She pairs strangers who share a sound, or old friends looking for a living-room ease, a strategy that’s culminated in real collaborations, including songs she’s since co-written herself. Each artist plays five or six songs, alternating back and forth through the set.

Doors are at 7:30 p.m. with the show starting at 8 p.m., and by 6:45 p.m. that Sunday, the line starts wrapping around the block—with only 40 tickets each show (which consistently sell out). Entry is a $20 bill at the door. Mini Bar closes at 7 p.m., so regulars grab a drink beforehand, then get in line.

Alumni have gone on to sign record deals and write for major country acts. The room has hosted 11-time hit-songwriter Wyatt Durrette (known for "Chicken Fried," "Beautiful Crazy," and "Toes" performed by Zac Brown Band) and Grammy winner Shelby Means alongside rookie artists. The room's biggest name might be James Otto, who wrote "In Color" for Jamey Johnson and topped the charts himself with "Just Got Started Lovin' You," the only artist DDB has hosted with a No. 1 both as a singer and as a songwriter.

These days, Foster runs one season (four shows) a year at Elliotborough Mini Bar, with occasional pop-ups at Marsh Wear's King Street store, booking the full season each January. Every show wraps with Foster's original “Dear Dive Bar.”

Foster defines a proper dive bar as "dim lighting, a colorful cast of regular local characters, and an eclectic array of stuff on the walls." For the next two DDB shows: September 20 at Elliotborough Mini Bar (8 p.m.) and October 4 at the Marsh Wear store on King Street (7 p.m.). @deeardivebar

The Rest of the Rooms

A few blocks and decades separate the rest of Charleston's original-music strongholds, and each has its own temperament. Royal American, in a converted 1950s ironworks on the upper peninsula, packs a crowd shoulder to shoulder under stained-glass church windows for local, regional, and national acts on a small stage (original music, only two covers permitted). The Pour House on James Island has logged more than 7,000 shows since 2002 and gave Shovels & Rope a Monday-night home before the world caught on. And out on Isle of Palms, the Windjammer has stood since 1972, rebuilt bigger after Hurricane Hugo, launching Hootie & the Blowfish, Edwin McCain, and Sister Hazel on its way to becoming an oceanfront institution.

Wherever the address, give a songwriter a corner to stand in and a curious crowd, and see what happens. It’s not about the music–but the community that gathers in a room, zealous to listen.