The next day we set out to explore Nashville, the home of American country music! First we headed to the Grand Ole Opry House. This is a huge concert theatre that seats 4400 and is home to the oldest continuous radio program in the United States. The Grand Ole Opry has been broadcasting live country music concerts since 1925. Country music stars become Opry members by achieving particular success in their career and by agreeing to do a certain number of live performances at the Opry House each year. It's a very prestigious thing to be invited by the show's management to be an Opry member, and currently there are only about 60 members – including Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks and Carrie Underwood.
Anyway, it was a very chilly morning and the area around the Opry House was almost deserted. We took some photos around the outside, discovered that the nearby Opry Museum was closed for Christmas, and then did a “front of house” tour inside the the Opry House. The tour guide was a sweet old lady who seemed to have worked at the Opry for a very long time. The stage was set up for the New York City Rockettes' Christmas show, which is being performed at the Opry House while the Opry is being broadcast from another of its venues, the Ryman Auditorium, until January. Anyway, it was an interesting tour and one of the essential Opry-related Nashville experiences! And I got two Opry guitar picks from the Opry Shop. :)
We also took the art of tourist photography to a whole new level of committment... :P
Next we went to Broadway, which is the street where it all happens – live music, shops selling western boots and hats, and lots of neon signs! Just like Beale Street in Memphis, only it's mostly country music instead of blues. We only had about an hour there, but we tried on lots of Stetson hats, saw lots of fringed cowboy boots and shirts (in the shops, not on people!), and even encountered an Elvis or two. :)
The highlight of the day for me was going to the Bluebird Café for dinner and the 6pm show. This is a café I had read about on tripadvisor.com and in our Lonely Planet guide, where local singers and songwriters perform nightly. The late shows incur a cover charge, but the 6pm slot is free if you sit at the bars or in the “pews” (where we were) – you're just requested to spend a minimum of $7 pp on food. The cafe's slogan is “Shhhh!” as you're not meant to talk during the songs - it's an intimate concert rather than just background music. Many now-famous stars played at the Bluebird Café early in their careers – the walls were covered with their signed photos.
On this Thursday night there were four young singer-songwriters in the show – they sat on four stools with their guitars and just took it in turn to play songs. Their names were Jenn Schott, Mallory Pike, Paul Sikes and Adam Wheeler. They are all professional songwriters working for studios in Nashville, and between them they had even written songs for a few country singers/ bands I have heard of – Jenn wrote Little Town for Lonestar and Adam wrote A Few Questions for Clay Walker! Anyway, they were BRILLIANT!! Great voices, great original songs (even one written the day before!), great spontaneous harmonies with each other... it was a fantastic show! Mallory is actually Universal Records' most recently signed-on star-to-be, and all of them have MySpace websites with samples of their songs if you're interested. :)
Anyhow, that was our day in Nashville! I thoroughly enjoyed it... Ben, well, endured it. :P Next stop – Washington DC!
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