Nashville Tennessee

Day 5, Saturday 9/12, Getting Situated in Nashville

We are leaving the Tennessee highlands (Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachian Plateau); that part of Tennessee that sympathized with the Union in the Civil War. The small farmers of Appalachia did not rely on slave labor. It takes about 3½  hour to reach Nashville, located in the middle third of the state, the Tennessee basin.

Tennessee is divided into 3 geographic regions
Eastern Highlands, Central Basin, and Western Gulf Coastal Plain 
Regions are codified in the Tennessee Constitution
Each region has its own culture and economy

We are staying in the Brentwood suburb of Nashville in a basement apartment in a private home arranged thru Airbnb. Great price point. Search for “Nashville Fort” on Airbnb. The apartment has one bedroom, a large open living room and kitchen done a la HGTV style, a modern bathroom, and a covered patio and backyard. The neighborhood is very pleasant—trees, jogging lanes, easy access to coffee and restaurants. Just like at home. The apartment will be a needed refuge from daily tours of Nashville and genealogical research in Maury County. Great location. Downtown Nashville is 15 minutes away and the archives in Columbia, the Maury County seat, is 45 minutes south.

The "Nashville Fort"

The big news in Nashville is that with the help of the business community Nashville elected Megan Barry, a socially liberal mayor, keeping Nashville blue in a sea of red. Business have been a force in promoting socially liberal causes, e.g., same-sex marriage in Illinois. See http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/us/nashvilles-mayor-elect-finds-path-between-liberalism-and-commerce.html .

Evening. Patrons have filled up pubs and restaurants to watch the Oklahoma-Tennessee college football game.  We eventually find a table at Firebirds. Tammy had the wood grilled salmon, salt-encrusted bake potato and mixed vegetables. Martin had a fillet kabob with grilled vegetable and balsamic ancho chile drizzle and mixed green with tomatoes, sugar roasted pecans, cilantro-lime vinaigrette. We refueled at Firebirds several times. Oklahoma won by 7 points.

Day 6, Sunday, 9/13, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

We drove to downtown Nashville to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. We parked on a surface lot across the street from the hall of fame.  The first thing we noticed when got out of the car is this odd looking AT&T skyscraper that dominates the Nashville skyline. It has twin antennas prominently sticking up on either end of the roof top.

AT&T Building

The first section of the museum traces country music from its early 1900’s "hillbilly" music beginnings to traditional country music of stars like Patsy Cline to rock 'n roll/rockabilly of Elvis Presley. Displayed in period-specific cases are musicians' instruments, clothing, and other personal belongings.  We couldn't stop watching rare film clip loops of early country musicians and accompanying "buck" dancers (similar to Scottish clogging). We recognized some of the performers in the clips from the 1950's, like Roy Rogers and his band the Sons of the Pioneers. A couple of interesting facts: (1) technology, the radio, spread country music to other regions of the country as far as California and helped cross-pollinate country with other types of music like Cajun and jazz; and (2)  Nudie Cohen from Kiev designed the first stylized cowboy outfit, those with rhinestones, for country singers in Los Angeles. He became the tailor to the country music stars.

Nudie Cohen was first to design fancy western costumes with rhinestone

Nudie Cohen's sewing machine

There are some rocking clips of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and other rock n' rollers playing "Tutti Frutti" and "Great Balls of Fire."  One stand-out film clip Martin really liked was the 1950’s rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson shaking and belting out “Hard Headed Women." Whoa!

Photo of film clip of Elvis Presley performing

The next room had the exhibit that drew us to the museum: "Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats". Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, the studio musicians the Nashville Cats, and producer Bob Johnston opened up the door for folk and rock musicians to come to Nashville to record. The exhbit includes film clips of Dylan and Cash collaborating at the studio and singing ”Lady from the North Country" on Johnny Cash's television show.  It turns out that Johnny Cash made the first move by writing to Bob Dylan that he liked the originality of his first album (called “Bob Dylan”). Among others, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young recorded with the Nashville Cats. And Dylan recorded “Blond on Blond”, “John Wesleyan Harding”, and “Nashville Skyline” in Nashville. (The exhibit ends December 31, 2015.) Read the NYT article that informed us about the exhibit: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/arts/music/dylan-cash-and-the-nashville-cats-an-unlikely-alliance-of-rock-and-country.html?_r=0

Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bob Johnston (Photo from exhibit)

We didn’t do justice to all the exhibits because we were tired. We didn’t explore other recording with the Nashville Cats or country singers of the 60’s, 70’s and so on, like the Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons, Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, up to current stars like Taylor Swift.

We really liked the walk through country music’s past.  But Martin thinks the museum could have done better with more creative displays (e.g. interactive displays, not just display cases).  It had some obvious flaws, like descriptions in display cases that were so low you had to bend down to read them.

We left the museum looking for nourishment. Broadway and also 2nd Street are the main tourist drags in downtown Nashville. They are occupied by bars with musician playing nothing that special and barkers beckoning you to come in.

Bars and barkers on Broadway (stylized photo by Tammy)

We ate at Merchants. It’s a nice place to have lunch or dinner when roaming downtown. We ate there several times. That evening we drove back to Brentwood, stocked up at Kroger’s, went to our apartment, and made plans for the rest of our stay in Nashville.

Day 7, Monday 9/14, Rosh Hashana and the Blue Bird Cafe

Rosh Hashana. Nashville has 3 synagogues—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed. The reformed congregation, Ohabai Shalom (“lovers of peace”), founded in the 18951, is open to the public for the High Holidays. So, although we didn’t have proper attire, (Tammy did buy a wrap at the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum store) we attended morning services. The synagogue is known as the “Temple”. It is located about 20 minutes from Brentwood on Harding Pike in the suburb of Bell Meade. Harding Pike houses the other two synagogues as well as a host of Christian churches. Although the Temple has 750 members, the atmosphere was friendly and intimate. We sat down fairly close to the stage. Wished L’Shanna Tova to the people sitting on either side of us telling them who we are. The stage is set-up with a young rabbi and cantor, both women, at the bimah running the show and a gowned chorus to the left. For the opening number, the young children chorus call the “Mazeltones” (cute!) sang the actual sounds of the shofar in response to calls for the shofar blasts. Cute again. It was a great way to start the New Year service. The cantor had a beautiful operatic voice and accompanied herself on piano. At Kehila Chadasha, we recite and sing prayers with Rabbi Sheyner.  At the Temple the chorus does the heavy lifting.

Rabbi Schiftan, the senior rabbi gave a moving sermon about a pressing issue. The Temple is in the Bible Belt and he feels it is important for the congregation to go beyond what it has already done to establish closer realtions with the Christian community. The rabbi recently accompanied Christian clergy to Israel to give them a hands-on understanding of Jewish life.  What may have made his plea urgent is that the Temple was hit by a bullet last April, a day before the Tennessee Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony. Rabbi Schiftan built his case by showing how intertwined the Jewish and Christian communities are. He asked people in the audience who were not Jewish to stand up. A good number of people stood up. Then he asked how many parents had children married or in serious relationship with someone who is not Jewish. At least half the congregation was standing. Then he pointed out that besides these familial connection, congregants’ neighbors and colleagues are Christian. Rabbi Schiftan wants Temple members to overcome any residual resistance they may have to breaking down barriers to the Christian community, especially fundamentalist Christians.  Kidding, the rabbi said he was aware that the complaint box may be filled in response to his request.

Bluebird Cafe. IIt is teh new yaer, so in the late afternoon we hurried to the Bluebird café, one of the premier clubs for emerging and established musicians, to sit in on open mic night. A replica of the Bluebird is used in the ABC series "Nashville". Open mic night is held Mondays at 6 PM. We got a late start and traffic was heavy so we arrived about 10 minutes too late to make the cut-off to get in. The Bluebird is a small venue. Get there at 5, doors open 5:30 for the 6 PM show.

Open mic performers lined up to go into to the Bluebird

Licking our wounds, we acquiesced to go to the 9:30 show. On a recommendation of a Bluebird employee we went downtown for dinner to the Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant, but that too was booked, a 1½ hour wait. Seemed like a cool place and it had a stage. Fell back on the reliable Merchants for dinner.

We drove back to Bluebird for the late show, got there in time, paid our $12 apiece and were not disappointed. We sat at a table with 3 young blokes from England. They were postman traveling by bus on the music road to New Orleans. We may meet them again. Mike Henderson and the musicians accompanying him were great. They started off playing original blues pieces that were very good, but as the night wore on they started jamming. Incredible performances. Joining the band was the keyboard player for Stevie Ray Vaughn. He was red hot. Mike Henderson and his band are the regulars for the Monday night show. They've done it for 25 years.

Mike Henderson at the Bluebird