July 21, 2009

• Our adventure in Nashville is complete. The one thing quite obvious is that Nashville needs some young blood is most of the stars are in some state of decay. Below is a picture of a rising young star.

  

  Just to be sure that we don’t jump shift the whole music scene I will include a touch of maturity in my act.

  

  Our trip to Nashville was interesting and we had a very good time. I am not a dyed in the wool country western fan although I grew up in Western Kansas in the 40s and 50s and there certainly was a lot of country music around. I did not see my first TV program until 1956 and the radio was my source of contact with the outside world. We moved to Garden City Kansas in 1945 and for the next five or so years we listened to the radio on Saturday night. Our two favorite programs were “Your Hit Parade”and “The Grand Old Opry”. Not surprisingly, the stars we saw at the grand old Opry last Saturday night were the stars that we listened to in the late 40s and 50s. There was one young group called the Lovell Sisters who appeared to be in their early 20s. None of the other people appeared to be less than 50 years old.

  I am sure some of the current country stars host the Opry at times and when they do I would guess that they sing 30 to 40-year-old songs like Roy Clark, Jean Shepherd, Connie Smith, and the supporting cast sang.

  Viewing the grand old Opry was definitely on my bucket list and I’m really glad that I got to do that. I was much more excited about visiting the old Ryman Auditorium than the new fancy Opryland. They stressed the fact that the grand old Opry is the oldest continuous radio show on the air and that it has been running over 75 years. As our country has changed the grand old Opry has tried not to change and that was quite evident. I hate to use the words decaying institution but I don’t know what else fits.  I looked so forward to hearing the voices I grew up with that I forgot that they were as old as I am and Roy Clark looked almost decrepit.

   

  We stayed by Opryland which is about 6 miles from downtown Nashville. There was one café that had young undiscovered people, but I’m not sure it was anywhere near the level of the bluebird Café which is world famous. We did go by the bluebird Café but it was closed and we decided to go back later. It was scheduled to open at 6 PM on Sunday. Having looked into the café it is very small and probably seats 60 people. We got there at 530 and there were the least 200 people in line.

   

  We then bopped off to downtown Nashville to sample honky-tonk food and aspiring young musicians. One place had a sign on the door that flushed us out. The sign read, “if you think the music is loud, you’re getting old”. I was blown away when I stepped into the first bar to scope it out. The music was incredibly loud, it was da rk, damp,  dank, musty and and smelled of old booze. I could not understand why or how I went to those places every night when I was drinking, but they weren’t an option this time around. So we went to Ripley’s barbecue and listened to a two-piece band with a wanna be John Denver singer, who was really a pretty decent singer.

  In the next few days look for blogs on; the cowboy country church, the Ryman Auditorium, eating lunch surrounded by saltwater aquariums, the Green Hornet and other bits of wisdom.

  After spending a few hours downtown on two afternoons it was quite apparent that Nashville Tennessee is an incredibly loud and rowdy town. I could say that it’s a town living in the past but then that would be a judgment that wouldn’t be very useful.

  We met my best friend from high school and his wife in Nashville and really enjoyed their company. As I reread this blog it may not look like I had a really good time but we really had fun. Don and I used to cruise around singing pop and country songs and chasing women which we never caught. If we could’ve afforded guitars when we were in high school we would have looked kind of like this.

  

  keep the faith.

  david

  • 1:37 pm
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