The Truth and Three Chords
A humid, uber-centric and music-filled week in Nashville, Tennessee.
The truth is I have struggled with this update. I’ve deleted long swathes. I was frustrated and unsure why.
I’m now in Quebec City, Canada, after a few days getting a sense of Newfoundland on the far eastern point of North America - looking across the Atlantic Ocean back toward Cornwall where this year’s travel adventure began.
Staying in on my first night here. It was a big travel day on the red-eye from St John’s connecting through Montreal. I had hours to kill before check in so walked up to the old town and marvelled at the beauty and commitment to art and culture, and it hit me. The truth is I found Nashville uninspiring.
I am not going to overcomplicate it. It was a fun week - hot, humid and a difficult city to navigate on foot (outside of Downtown) it was uber-centric by necessity. Long days were filled with music. Cheese snacks, lunchtime mimosas and cocktails with summer fruits were in abundance.
It is said that every great country song is simply “three chords and the truth.” With music soundtracking every public space it would be impossible to argue otherwise. The great songs stand out that’s for sure.
When a song really hits I feel it from deep within my heart centre. The intimacy of a musician performing their own song with an acoustic guitar in a small venue can go either way for me - pure emotional bliss or a cringe-inducing disconnect from undercooked diary musings. There is no shortage of every song on the spectrum, day and night, in Nashville.
The venue bucket-list included the Bluebird Cafe, the Grand Ole Opry, a Downtown honky-tonk crawl and a late night visit to Printers Alley.
We snared tickets for a ‘songwriters in the round’ early show on a Thursday night at the iconic Bluebird Cafe. A 90-capacity venue in a suburban strip mall. It’s resplendent in those white ceiling tiles, with aluminum casing, you usually see in the roof of a suburban doctor’s surgery or nail salon. No frills. No fuss. Everyone respecting the house ‘rule’ to not converse whilst the musicians are performing.
The show was four 30-something white blokes taking turns singing their songs. Songs inspired by their wives, children and folks. Songs about time ticking by and reminiscing about being young and drunk. The proximity, less than two metres, to their bravado and vulnerabilities was the songwriting highlight of the week.
Another musical highlight was witnessing Herb Alpert play trumpet live. At 88 years and mourning the recent passing of his long term A&M business partner, Jerry Moss, he played a medley of Tijuana Brass hits at his Grand Ole Opry debut. His performance ached with love, grief and joy.
The Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame and the permanent museum archives of Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash are top shelf.
I wonder if Patsy Cline had not died prematurely in a 1963 plane crash where would her life have taken her ? How would the sexual revolution, feminism and technology have impacted her career and collaborations? Would she have retired, reinvented or double-downed like Johnny Cash did in in the 1990s ?
In the heat and haze there was also The National playing outdoors, a visit to Third Man Records, a jelly pedi-spa, cowboy spectating at professional bull-riding, Music Row and the purchasing of cowboy boots.
In Newfoundland I was struck by a similarity with Nashville - both have deep celtic-settler roots with lasting social and cultural impact.
The migrant stories of the Irish and Scots-Irish in North America have fascinated me in New York, Boston and now Tennessee and Newfoundland. The impact of celtic cultures on country music in the south and the folk music of the North East can still be heard.
In both cities songwriters are revered and respected whether it be in live performance venues or in archives, museums or with bronze statues and plaques. I love that.
Reading - Demon Copperhead a (hefty) novel set in the mountains of southern Appalachia by Barbara Kingsolver.
Listening - adding assorted versions of Tennessee Waltz, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and some newer songs by Josh Melton, Karl S Williams, Mia Dyson and The Pleasures (Catherine Britt and Lachlan Bryan) to my 2023 Travel playlist.
Eating - this breakfast in a hipster Nashville cafe of fancy toast with peaches, raspberries, cream cheese and smoked honey was delectable !
#walkon2023 Step Count - accumulative total 1,238,182 (as at 25 August 2023)
I like your thoughts - I can hear you talking through them. Interesting how travel gives you a perspective for your reflections. Love t hear more about the Irish and Celts in NA. Kaye