Nashville Travel
South from Nashville
As you head southeast from Nashville, large nineteenth-century plantation homes line US-31 between suburban Brentwood and the historic town of FRANKLIN , eighteen miles out. One of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War occurred here on November 30, 1864, when 8500 men fell in less than an hour. Despite forcing the Union troops back to Nashville, huge losses meant that the Southerners could not follow up their victory. Among several strategic buildings open to visitors is Carnton Plantation (AprilOct MonSat 9am5pm, Sun 15pm; NovMarch MonSat 9am4pm, Sun 14pm; $7; tel 615/794-0903), about a mile southeast of the town on Hwy-431, a former Confederate hospital where bloodstains are still visible on the floor. The town's entire fifteen-block center, now full of antique and specialty shops, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Several country stars favor the area, among them Billy Ray Cyrus, who owns a 400-acre ranch outside the town.
Grand Ole Opry
Nashville's radio station WSM ("We Shield Millions," the slogan of its insurance-company sponsor) first broadcast on October 5, 1925. Two years later, at the start of his Barn Dance show, compere George D. Hay announced "for the past hour we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera, but from now on we will present The Grand Ole Opry ." This piece of slang became the name of America's longest-running radio show, still going out to millions every Friday and Saturday evening on WSM-AM (650); the original "hillbilly" jam session has become country music's elite showcase.
Swiftly outgrowing the WSM studios, the show moved in 1943 to a former tabernacle the Ryman Auditorium . There it acquired a make-or-break reputation; up-and-coming singers could only claim to have made it if they had gone down well at the Opry. Among thousands of hopefuls who tried to get on the show was Elvis Presley, advised by an Opry official in 1954 to stick to truck-driving. The first appearance of Hank Williams , in 1949, commanded an unequaled six encores. Within four years, the Opry audience was singing his evangelical I Saw the Light on the news of his drink- and drug-induced death.
In 1974 the show moved on again, this time to a new purpose-built 4424-seat theater in what was the Opryland theme park (now the Opry Mills mall) one of many Opry spin-offs, including hotels, TV stations and a record label. Among more than sixty stars currently on the Opry roster are old-timers like Hank Snow and Charlie Louvin, perennial superstars like Dolly Parton, and current country chart-toppers such as Garth Brooks and Alison Krauss. However, many of the younger artists are busy touring, so most shows are dominated by stars whose best days have past.
Throughout the year, two performances on Saturday night at 6.30pm and 9.30pm and one on Friday night at 7.30pm feature up to twenty acts. During the summer there's an extra Friday night show and matinee on Tuesday. The line-ups are usually announced at the box office on the preceding Thursday. Tickets are $2325 and not too hard to get, especially if you book in advance. Contact the box office at 2808 Opryland Drive, Nashville, TN 37214 (tel 615/889-3060).
Jack Daniel's at Lynchburg
The change-resistant village, LYNCHBURG , seventy miles southeast of Nashville, is home to Jack Daniel's Distillery (daily 9am4.30pm; free). Founded in 1866, this is the oldest registered distillery in the country (hence the famous "No. 1" appellation). Entertaining seventy-minute tours lead you through every step of the sour-mash whiskey-making process but you can't actually sample the stuff, as you're in a dry county, though you can buy special edition bottles of the stuff in the giftshop, every day but Sunday.
Lynchburg itself is a pretty hamlet, laid out around a neat town square with a redbrick courthouse and a number of old-fashioned stores. One enjoyable throwback is Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House , which serves enormous Southern dinners (fried chicken, turnip greens, country ham and the like) at group tables in a lovely 1805 home (reservations are essential; tel 615/759-7394).
Country music attractions
The status of Nashville as country music's capital city dates back to the Twenties and the arrival of thousands of migrants fleeing rural poverty. The music they brought with them, rooted in the folk songs of Tennessee's first Irish and British settlers, soon mutated in the urban environment into something new, incorporating elements of Tin Pan Alley musicals, religious hymns and the songs of ex-slaves.
As radios and record players became widely available for the first time, the recording industry began to take off, and Nashville became the obvious geographical base for the musicians of the mid-South. Radio station WSM had championed the country sound since 1925, and its live weekly Grand Ole Opry concerts spearheaded the city's burgeoning live music scene.
The first big commercial boom came in the decade of prosperity after World War II. Nashville proliferated with recording studios, publishing companies and artists' agencies. The big labels recognized that a large slice of the (white) record-buying public wanted something a bit safer than rockabilly. The easy-listening Nashville Sound they came up with, pioneered by Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, perpetuated by the likes of Barbara Mandrell and Kenny Rogers and virtually preened free of twang by Shania Twain and Garth Brooks, remains the clean-cut face of country though country music has always had its earthier side and the concentration of stars and music-biz executives has turned Nashville into something of a downmarket Hollywood.
Though Nashville's country scene is both conspicuous and accessible, submerging yourself in it takes time and quite a lot of money; prices are set at what the industry knows enthusiastic fans will pay.
Downtown at 116 Fifth Ave, you can take a self-guided tour of the Ryman Auditorium (daily 8.30am4pm; $6; tel 615/254-1445), the former home of The Grand Ole Opry. With its wooden church pews and glass cases filled with flowered frocks and bootlace ties belonging to the stars, it's certainly an evocative place to visit it also presents live performances in the evening. Around the corner, among the Broadway honky-tonks, Hatch Show Print at no. 316 (MonFri 9.30am5.30, Sat 10.30am5.30pm, hours vary on Sun; tel 615/256-2805) has been in business since 1879. It still prints and sells evocative posters from the early days of country and rock'n'roll, using the original blocks, along with probably the best postcards in the USA. Flamboyant leather and sequined garments are sold in Dangerous Threads , at the foot of Second Avenue nearby at no. 105, but to see some really outlandish stage costumes, visit Manuel's Exclusive Clothing up toward Music Row at 1922 Broadway.
Blue route trolleys run along Broadway to the Country Music Hall of Fame , at 222 Fifth Ave S (daily 9am5pm; $10.75). This is packed with costumes, guitars and personal possessions of the stars, including Boxcar Willie's hobo hat, Gram Parsons' acoustic guitar and Elvis's gold Cadillac, whose forty coats of paint contain crushed diamonds and fish scales. Film and TV clips abound to help to clarify the arcane distinctions between bluegrass, cowboy, rockabilly, honky-tonk, Cajun and western swing.
Music Row is the heart of Nashville's recording industry, with companies like Warner Bros., Mercury and Sony operating out of plush office blocks. Almost adjacent are the garish souvenir shops on Demonbreun Street, and several tacky "museums."
With the exception of the Grand Ole Opry itself, Opryland , the area nine miles northeast of downtown on Briley Parkway, just off the I-40 E loop, isn't all that country. The old theme park has been ripped down and replaced by Opry Mills , a giant series of malls filled with flagship stores, restaurants and cinemas. Also leaving from here are paddlesteamer trips on the beautifully restored General Jackson Showboat ($2565; tel 615/871-6100). You can ride a bus #34X to nearby Music Valley , opposite the Opryland hotel, which boasts the popular Nashville Palace , along with a museum dedicated to Willie Nelson and others, that showcases wax dummies and surplus cars of the stars. A factory outlet mall, various stores and movie theaters all compete to snatch the tourist dollar.
Nashville
Set amid the gentle hills and fertile farmlands of central Tennessee, NASHVILLE attracts six million people each year a mixture of devoted fans and the just plain curious to immerse themselves in country music . They come to enjoy themselves, and the city makes sure that they do, offering not just the relatively mainstream Country Music Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry , but all the wonders of "Tacksville." To make the most of this facet of Nashville, you need to abandon any idea of detachment, and get out there among the nightspots and gift emporia, joining the quest for souvenir T-shirts, Stetsons, rattlesnake belts and photos of your favorite star.
However, there is a real city beneath the rhinestone glitter. Nashville has been the leading settlement in middle Tennessee since Fort Nashborough was established in 1779. State capital since 1843, it is now the financial and insurance center of the mid-South, as well as a fast-growing manufacturing base. Giant Nissan and Saturn motor plants have been attracted to its immediate hinterland, and rapid growth since World War II has transformed a once-compact city into a sprawling conurbation stretching out in all directions along the undulating roads, here known as pikes .
For all its blue-collar "Nash-Vegas" image, Nashville has maintained a strong reputation for learning since planter times, and is home to sixteen higher education establishments, including Vanderbilt University and the renowned colleges of Fisk University and Meharry Medical School. The city likes to see itself as the "Athens of the South" and, endearingly, has built a replica of the Parthenon to bolster its claim. Even at night, Nashville offers more than country music, with enough going on to satisfy most tastes. It has also boosted its image by attracting an NFL team (the Tennessee Oilers) and NHL side (the Nashville Predators) here.
The other conspicuous element in Nashville's make-up is religion . There are over seven hundred churches, more per capita than anywhere else in the country. But what really earns it the tag of "Protestant Vatican" is the proliferation of colleges for training preachers and missionaries, church administrative offices and Bible-publishing plants.