Nashville is my heaven – or at least one version of what heaven might be like. What more could a gal ask for than country music and cowboys and conversation peppered with ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘No, little lady’.
And if Nashville is heaven, Broadway is at its heart. A busy street lined with honky tonks (bars that provide live country music), this is the bloodline of the Tennessee state capital. It was here that many country and western legends got their break and where many more ply their trade in the hope of being discovered.
Musicians play for tips and a chance to sell their CDs to an appreciative public. I wanted to go to Tootsies Orchid Lounge – that honky tonk where Willie Nelson caught a break; he got his first songwriting job after singing there. Rumour has it that Roger Miller wrote ‘Dang Me’ in Tootsies and rumour aside, his stool was the third one in from the door. It’s an amazing place, chock full of memorabilia, and a picture of Tootsie herself over the bar. In a future life, if not in this one, I’d like to try my hand at being a Tootsie – to be an incubator for live talent, to facilitate that fame … now that would be quite the accomplishment.
You can’t help but think about what it all must have been like thirty or forty years ago when Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Patsy Kline were in their prime. Bumping into one of those as you bellied up to the bar would have been nothing short of amazing. As it is, Broadway is bopping, even on a Monday night. Music seeps out of every pore and into every muscle. No one can stand or sit still. Such is country. It gets into your blood. If ever I missed a dance partner, this was it.
We struck lucky when we came across Jake Maurer, who along with his band, the Naked Truth, has been playing in Tootsies for five years – so you know he has to be doing something right. The guy is good … and cute!
And, in yet another bout of synchronicity, his bass player is none other than the CJ Wilder I was raving about from the Henderson Blues and BBQ festival. Maurer and Wilder have co-written some of the songs on Maurer’s latest album – American Hat. What a break – the music gods were certainly smiling on me.
Nashville has its tacky side – of course, it does. It wouldn’t be a tourist attraction without the requisite tacky shops and those selling seriously upmarket boots and stetsons (most of which are made in China!). It’s got its themed restaurants – the line outside Jack’s stretched half-way down the street – and famous crab-shacks and rib joints. Waiters and bar staff may work for tips, as do the musicians, yet it ain’t a cheap night out – which is probably why most of the patrons sip slowly on their beers and just enjoy the music.
In 1941, Nashville was granted the first FM license in the United States. Music City then became the first to enjoy static-free radio. And it was in Nashville, at RCA’s Historic Studio B on Music Row where Elvis Presley recorded 200 of his hits. The city itself was founded on Christmas Eve 1779 by two teams of pioneers who had come from the Carolinas. Originally called Fort Nashborough, it would change to Nashville when the French were more in favour than the British.
