Thursday 12 to Thursday 19 September 2024 (Part One)
The Nashville Sounds are the city’s baseball team, whose stadium we passed on our regular walks from our base in Germantown, a mile or so to the north of Downtown
This piece is a LETJOG Blog with a difference: an account of a week where my walking took second place to another personal passion, live music. Along with local friends Mark, Mike and Matt, I embarked upon a long-planned, week-long tour of the sights and sounds of Nashville, Tennessee, the ‘Home of Country Music’. Although we covered well over thirty miles of walking in getting around the city during our visit, this activity was secondary to our mission: so all those not interested in the particular musical genre perhaps need not read on, and I will be back to writing accounts of nature and walking before too long. But for those of you who would like to share our insight into the Nashville scene please feel free to join our band of music-lovers over my next three Blogs. Here goes:
The direct BA flight from Heathrow to Nashville, the acclaimed ‘Music City’, takes around eight hours . . .. . . delivering us to our destination late in the evening: the city sits in the centre of Tennessee state, astride the Cumberland RiverA Taylor-made welcome . . .. . . awaits new arrivals at the airport
A fifteen-minute taxi ride from the airport took us to our Airbnb accommodation in the pleasant residential suburb of Germantown, conveniently placed just to the north of Downtown. We struck lucky here (thanks to Mark), finding ourselves in a remarkable four-bedroomed rental house for the week, within easy (and safe) walking distance from the centre – a great base from which to experience the city – albeit involving a lot of urban walking!
Next morning, on our thirty-minute walk into Downtown that was to become quite familiar, we passed through The Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, with views towards the Tennessee State Capitol building and the city centre beyond . . .. . . on our way to the Country Music Hall of Fame . . .. . . where the stars are alignedThe exhibition features the sounds, instruments, costumes and artefacts of Nashville over the decades . . .. . . from Elvis’ gold-plated Cadillac . . .. . . to Gram Parsons’ ‘Nudie Suits’ . . .. . . and right up to a present day tour busAnd there is even a chance to meet with the stars . . .. . . and to reflect upon their achievementsNext, a first experience of Downtown . . .. . . and a country covers group in Nudies Honky Tonk . . .. . . before a dinner of ‘Texan Smoked Brisket & Chips with Fried Bread’ (or a more healthy salad, as the case may be) in Von Elrod’s Beer Hall, near to our house in GermantownBack into Downtown for the evening show at the Ryman AuditoriumFirst up, ‘Montana-bred, Nashville-based’ rock/bluegrass band, TopHouse . . .. . . and an interval chance to meet Joe Larson, lead vocalist and guitaristThen the main act – the award-winning Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway, a renowned five-piece bluegrass band . . .. . . later joined by an array of iconic guests from the genre, that included Del McCoury, Bryan Sutton, and Lukas Nelson (son of Willie): a very special one-off evening that we were most fortunate to attendNot a bad ending to a very full first day in Music City!Next morning, whilst two of our number made an out-of-town taxi trip to ‘The Hermitage’, ex-President Andrew Jackson’s plantation home, Mike and I stuck with music history at the Musicians’ Hall of Fame, a museum that honours not just the stars but the process and all the people who, ‘regardless of genre or instrument’, have brought music to the world . . .. . . from the origins of recorded sound until the present dayBuddy Holly in concert . . .. . . a collection of Glen Campbell’s instruments and costumes . . .. . . Johnny Cash’s car and concert signage . . .. . . and a temporary exhibition on the life and works of Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVieA chance to lay down an instrumentation track – for Mike, at least!Hanging out with ‘Country Gentleman’ Chet Atkins, a central player in the creation of the ‘Nashville Sound’ . . .. . . and then into Downtown again, to watch the revellers amidst the party buses . . .. . . before taking in some country covers from Wendy Newcomer and her band, the Nashville Cats, in Robert’s Western World – one of the many lively honky-tonks on BroadwayAt The Listening Room Café, a venue dedicated to up-and-coming singer-songwriters, the team reunited for dinner . . .. . . whilst enjoying the sequential acts from singer-songwriters Adam Craig, Josh Phillips and Matt Alderman: Phillips (centre, and playing) performed his recent self-composition ‘Dirt Cheap’, a cover of which, by Cody Johnson, is currently riding high in the charts‘Nights on Broadway’
Thus concluded a quite hectic start to our Nashville trip, and there is much more to follow shortly, in Part Two of this Blog.
My Blog heading today seems appropriate. The words ‘Sundown In Nashville’ are borrowed from a 2003 song by country and bluegrass singer-songwriter Marty Stuart, former guitarist in Johnny Cash’s band. The song’s lyrics, penned in the late 1960’s by Dwayne Warwick (and originally performed by Carl Butler and Pearl) commence with the words: ‘The sign says “Welcome to Nashville”, from whatever road you’ve been down’, and we have certainly been made to feel very much at home here in ‘Music City’.
Tennessee is also renowned for bourbon whiskey – we happened upon a mini-distillery at the Nashville Farmers’ Market in Germantown
One thought on “Sundown In Nashville”
looks like loads of fun. You just ‘happened’ upon the distillery???? 😂😂
Walking for Fun, Challenge and Charity! 
looks like loads of fun. You just ‘happened’ upon the distillery???? 😂😂
LikeLike