Here are some of our favorite photos from the trip (each photo is a thumbnail linked to a higher quality picture.):
1) Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN, June 23 - We had recently watched the Ken Burns TV documentary on country music and so a visit to the historic Ryman Auditorium was high on our list of places to visit in Nashville. We took the guided tour and then walked around afterwards to see all the displays inside, as well as to see the statues outside. It was well worth the visit and made us wish we could see a show there.
2) Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN, June 23 - The Ryman was renovated in the 1980s and the full wrap-around balcony was truncated so that a more spacious back stage area could be built. Still, the intimacy of the venue was preserved with all the seats clustered around the stage. These curved wooden pews date back to 1892 when the Ryman was originally built as a tabernacle to host traveling revivals.
3) Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN, June 23 - As part of the backstage tour we got to go up on the stage and see just how close all the seats are to the center of the stage.
4) Johnny Cash Museum, Nashville, TN, June 23 - The next stop, when steeping ourselves in the history of country music, was the Johnny Cash museum. This is a small (one-floor) museum but it does have quite a bit of memorabilia on display as well as multimedia stations playing Johnny Cash's music. One of the first displays was a timeline showing just how much of an impact Cash made between 1960 and 2000.
5) Johnny Cash Museum, Nashville, TN, June 23 - My favorite section was a simple room that just had all Johnny Cash's singles up on the wall. The sheer number of records was impressive and the colors of the labels contrasting with the black vinyl was almost mesmerizing.
6) Whiskey Bent Saloon, Nashville, TN, June 23 - Dad's little slice of heaven is singing and the multitude of bars along Lower Broadway (aka Honky Tonk Row) offered an overwhelming selection of opportunities to listen to live music. There are probably 50 different bars in just a few blocks and each one has live music - the multi-floor bars have a different band on each floor. Just walking down the sidewalk is a musical assault with the chaos of multiple bands spilling out of the open windows and doors. Everyone is playing endless covers of country party music. Dad and I found that the Whiskey Bent Saloon had musicians playing mostly accoustic which took the sound level down a notch or two. We spent a couple of hours listening first to Bill Roemer and then to Brandon Holder.
7) Whiskey Bent Saloon, Nashville, TN, June 23 - Both acts were talented but not a single original piece of music was played - the (large and very drunk) crowds wanted well known country covers and thats what gets played from dawn till dusk. It was good toe tapping music but I enjoyed studying the life of a working Nashville musician even more.
8) The Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, TN, June 23 - A country music weekend in Nashville has to include a visit to the Grand Ole Opry. We did a Friday night show and it was quite the extravaganza. Vince Gill was the headliner but there were eight other acts as well: Dan Kyminski, Riders In The Sky, Fancy Hagood, Everette, The French Family, Mike Sinclair, MaRynn Taylor and Jeannie Seely. Talk about a slick, professional production - live, radio broadcast and simul-cast on TV. The backstage production must be like a Swiss watch.
9) The Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, TN, June 23 - The music was, as to be expected, excellent and some of the acts where amazing overall entertainers with funny banter and good story telling as well as amazing songs. Vince Gill capped off the night with a touching tribute to Bluegrass legend Jesse McReynolds who had passed away earlier in the day.
10) Cheekwood Gardens, Nashville, TN, June 24 - Day two of our Nashville trip was split into two activities. The first half of the day was a morning walking around the expansive gardens at the Cheekwood Estate: A mansion and grounds founded in 1929 by the filty rich Cheek family (they had somethjng like 45 million just as the Great Depression was starting to wipe out lives…) Their estate has now been turned into a 55 acre botanical garden and art museum.
11) Cheekwood Gardens, Nashville, TN, June 24 - We arrived when it opened with a plan to see as much as possible before the heat/humidity got too uncomfortable to be outside. Thanks to lots of shade trees we were able to see everything we wanted without being driven back to the car’s A/C early, though it was getting warm enough that we were willing to pay cafe prices for a tiny cup of iced tea after walking the long loop of their Forest sculpture trail. Loads of colorful flowers, interesting outdoor art and fun kids areas.
12) Cheekwood Gardens, Nashville, TN, June 24 - Mom and Dad posed for a 80th birthday photo - it was a rare opportunity to take a photo of my mother when she was actually aware that a photo was being taken.
13) Cheekwood Gardens, Nashville, TN, June 24 - The sculpture forest walk had a wide variety of pieces on display but my favorite was this gateway that had both water mist and flames shooting up out of the top, as well as water flowing down the upright columns. Apparently the locals are used to it because a deer was nibbling grass just a few yards away.
14) The Listening Room, Nashville, TN, June 24 - The second half of our Saturday was my favorite experience so far - an evening singer-songwriter showcase at The Listening Room. There were three musicians, all of whom are contracted songwriters feeding songs into the country music industry. It is another, different view into the machinery that is the country music industry. Very talented writes who earn a paycheck putting their creativity to the test trying to write hits that the big-name signed artists can record. The showcase allowed these artists to tell the stories behind their songs and to talk about who has recorded their songs - and how having a hit pays off for these behind-the-scenes writers. The three musicians we saw were Adam Craig, Matt McKinney and Cody Hibbard. All three were good but Adam really impressed me with all his songs (even though my favorite was Matt’s song "Weather Man".) Oh, and just to confirm the trope that the wait staff at any Nashville restaurant would be a music star anywhere else they invited one of the waitresses to get up on stage to sing a song and she was incredible as well!
15) The Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville, TN, June 25 - Dad and I spent Sunday morning in the Country Music Hall of Fame while Mom and Jonna had a half spa day getting massages and facials. After recently watching the Ken Burns series on Country Music walking through the Hall of Fame museum was like walking into a familiar living room. There is Jimmie Rodgers train brakeman’s hat and here is Sara Carter’s autoharp. Look at that display with Bill Monroe’s mandolin, Lester Flatt’s guitar and Earl Scrugg’s banjo. Hey, it’s Hank William’s guitar. Every display case was a trip down memory lane - either from hearing music on radio and tape (8-track, of course) with my Dad or more recently from re-discovering artists after watching the Ken Burns TV show. It was an enjoyable museum particularly because I was sharing it with my Dad who was happily singing and humming songs as each display dredged up favorite songs he hadn’t thought of in awhile.
16) Sperry's Belle Meade, Nashville, TN, June 25 - One of my Dad's old college roommates from 60 years ago lives just south of Nashville. Sunday evening Mickey and his wife Brenda drove up to the Belle Meade neighborhood and we met them at Sperry's for a fancy dinner out. Sperry's is a classic English steakhouse complete with dark wood wall paneling, a menu focused on upscale English meals and a large collection of whiskeys. Nonetheless, there were a couple of options for the token vegetarian at the table and every seemed to enjoy their meal. We took a group photo as we left meaning that twice in one day my mother voluntarily stepped in front of a camera.
17) 3rd And Lindsley, Nashville, TN, June 26 - Okay, I can now definitively say that the level of musical talent in Nashville is beyond what I thought imaginable. I mean, I knew Nashville drew in musicians like moths to a flame, but today I got a glimpse of just how deep the talent pool really is. Two days ago Jonna found that a mid-day Monday show at the club 3rd And Lindsley still had tickets available for a show being presented there by the famous Bluebird Cafe team. So we decided sure - I mean it was a lunch show, so it won’t be the top talent but it will be okay to listen to some up-and-comers while we eat. Wow! How wrong could I have been. The show opened with some new-comers, Sam Blasko and Alex Barnes and they were enjoyable but also what I expected. Then the three headliners came out: Tony Arata, Leslie Satcher and Danny Myrick. To say that we were all blown away is a massive understatement. Every song resulted in goosebumps. The well deserved standing ovation showed the rest of the audience was amazed as well. I’d have happily watched these three as the highlight of any summer concert series and in Nashville they were playing a Monday afternoon lunch gig. This is now my highlight of the trip and it only happened because Jonna needed to find something for us to do inside where there was A/C on a Monday.
18) Radnor Lake State Park, Nashville, TN, June 27 - Despite the high temperature (90s!) and high humidity (70+%) and despite the fact that we didn't have proper hiking gear with us, Jonna and I decided to take an early morning hike to start out our last day in Nashville. Just a few miles from our hotel was Radnor Lake State Park - a small but peaceful park that appeared to mainly be used by birders and rich housewives. We hiked the mostly paved loop around the lake itself but added a side loop up onto Gainer Ridge. The hike up onto the ridge got us onto a quiet trail with only a few other hikers - quite the contrast to the paved loop around the lake which was packed with small groups of walkers doing their morning stroll (and gossip). We enjoyed getting to stretch our legs a bit after so much time spent sitting in bars and clubs.
19 The Museum of African-American Music, Nashville, TN, June 27 - The immersion in music just doesn’t stop. For our last day we drove back to Lower Broadway in order to visit the Museum of African-Anerixan music. The intro film was excellent and their use of technology was innovative but the overall layout of the museum was clearly targetting a young, ADD generation. It was an onslaught of information - text, pictures, video, background music, interactive screens, activity centers and exhibits with personal items of musicians. We spent 2 hours inside and it felt like being swirled around in an information tornado. Interesting but overwhelming. We all found parts we liked but none of us left feeling it was a satisfying experience. However, seeing Louis Armstrong’s horn was a pretty damned cool moment!
20) Tootsies Orchid Lounge, Nashville, TN, June 27 - we finished off our trip with, what else?, some more live music. Dad loved Honky Tonk Row (aka the Lower Broadway bar scene) and the most famous of the honky tonks is Tootsies. It has been hosting live music since the dinosaurs first put on cowboy boots and two-stepped to a bar band. (And I’m not sure it has been cleaned since then either!) A guy named Lucas Fuller and his two friends were belting out the usual catalog of country standards so we spent an hour singing along. Musically they were on par with the high quality that frequents the stages here, trading crowd favorites for tips, but they did distinguish themselves by being personable enough to take time out of their set to play with a toddler that was shaking his diaper in front of the stage (with his parents, less you think unaccompanied minors are hitting the bottle in Tootsies.)
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