Close down the honky tonks

Day 10 – Nashville
August 27, 2007

by Craig

Rise ‘n shine, cowboys. Jamie was up at the crack of 10 and stepped out for a head start on the day, checking out the Frist (closed) and previewing Arnolds (closed); I went for the extra naptime to prepare for another day as a tourist. Noon breakfast today is barbeque at Jack’s on Broadway. Just a short walk out the backdoor is the Ryman Auditorium, the “Mother Church of Country Music.” It was home to the Grand Ole Opry for fifty-some years before they moved that show to a lame auditorium/complex northeast of downtown.

We are definitely doing well at this point in terms of soaking up some music history, and we’re still a couple of days away from Cleveland and the Rock and Roll part of the lesson. Next stop, RCA Studio B. It’s kind of like the Sun Studios tour, not really a whole lot to see, but lots of history. Lots of HITS. 1,000 top ten hits. 45,000 songs recorded. Forty-some top ten hits recorded there by Mr. Presley. He liked that place. It was kind of cool to sit down at the Steinway where he wrote songs and warmed up before late night recording sessions. The studio is in the heart of Music Row. Nothing too interesting to see here, it’s just a bunch of office buildings (and recording studios) where the Business of music happens day-to-day. Writing songs, managing publishing rights, distribution, etc. To me, it’s kind of a reminder of how soul-less and banal “country” music is today.

After a short nap, we’re ready to shift gears and see some baseball. We do some more work on Jamie’s throwing (read: Craig chasing the ball) in the parking lot at Greer Stadium to see the Nashville Sounds play the Oklahoma City Redhawks. It’s AAA ball, a pretty decent game. This stadium is about thirty years old, so it’s got pretty good character. I’m ashamed to say so, but we left early (top of the eighth) with the score tied 0-0. Listening on the radio, we hear the Sounds win 1-0.

We had a good excuse to leave early – it’s hard to get a seat at the Bluebird Cafe, even on Sunday nights, which is a kind of tryout night for the regular gigs. The Bluebird is famous as a starting place for many of Nashville’s finest songwriters. Imagine sitting about eight feet from Guy Clark, Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt playing in the round, trading songs. The songwriters we saw weren’t all that great, in fact we agreed that some kind of sucked. Still, it’s cool to check out a venue where The Song is king.

I thought we were headed for an early (midnight or so) retirement for the evening, but noooo. Mr. Parker convinces me that we gotta do some honky-tonkin’ on Broadway, so, hey, I can be talked into that. First stop: Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. It’s a legendary watering hole that is just steps from the backstage of the Ryman – in fact, we’re told that the stage manager from the Ryman would often have to come in here to drag Hank back across the alley for his segment on the Opry.

For me, it kind of turns sour here. The place is packed with frat boys, and the band downstairs is playing some crappy pop song when we walk in. So we head upstairs to escape, and that band is rippin’ it up with some Van Halen. Doing a great job of it, mind you, but this is NOT what I came to Nashville to do. Things improve a bit when the singer does a nice job with my Patsy Cline request. On down the street to Roberts, where we see a great trio with a Bakersfield Sound thing going on and a rippin’ git-picker squeezing lick after lick out of his Telecaster. One more stop – Legends. Could just be bad memory or sleep deprivation, but all I can remember about the band we saw there is that they were lame and the bass player was about 4 feet 2.