CBS’s Bob Schieffer sings at D.C. bar

Bob Schieffer, host of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” took off his news hat and entertained the crowd Saturday night at Madam’s Organ, the storied bar in Adams Morgan.

Schieffer, a country singer, took the stage as a special guest and sang-spoke a few funny tunes. Backing him up were fellow journalists, including NPR’s John Burnett on harmonica and Lawrence Wright, the New Yorker scribe and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Looming Towers, on keyboards.

Wright and Burnett play together in a band called WhoDo, which had top billing at the bar Saturday.

An Austin, Texas, native, Schieffer also had a couple members of his own country band, Honky Tonk Confidential, with him, including his assistant at CBS, Kaylee Hartung, who sang backup vocals.

But the biggest star of the night wasn’t a prominent Washingtonian.

It was Ruby Jane, a 15-year-old fiddle prodigy who regularly tours with Willie Nelson. Jane played nearly every song of the two-hour set.

This wasn’t Schieffer’s first encounter with the young virtuoso. “I first met Ruby when she was 11,” he told the audience. “CBS did a story on her, and I knew then that she was going to be a very special talent.”

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