Carolinas, Georgia & South Trips (Lonely Planet, 1st Edition) - Alex Leviton [142]
The Opry Entertainment Complex consists of several contemporary buildings around a brick plaza. The Grand Ole Opry House is home to the legendary country music variety show on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. The performances, which nearly always include at least one big name act, are wonderful kitschy-yet-sincere fun. Next door, the Acuff Theater, named after songwriter and founder of the Acuff-Rose music publishing firm Roy Acuff, hosts other country performances. Across the way, the Grand Ole Opry Museum has a free self-guided tour of Opry history, with hilarious life-size dioramas featuring wax figures of country stars in realistic period settings (check out the orange carpet in the model of Marty Robbins’ 1970s Nashville office).
Even if you don’t stay at the Opryland Hotel, you’ve got to come gawk at the massive man-made environment, a sort of fake Delta river town under glass. Ride a flatboat through an artificial river, where musicians and comedians perform on giant lily pad stages, and snap photos of the indoor waterfalls. If you do stay, get a room with a balcony overlooking the atrium.
Head back into town for some rib-stickin’ goodness at Arnold’s Country Kitchen, where meat n’ threes like meatloaf with collards, fried green tomatoes and candied yams are served with both baked and griddle-cooked cornbread.
All the major record labels have offices here, many of them near the intersection of Demonbreun and Division Sts, an area known as Music Row. Though there’s not much to see on Music Row, if you’re dying to lay down your own tracks this is the place - smaller studios charge between $25 and $100 an hour for personal recording sessions. Be aware that you get what you pay for.
Gear up for a long night of honky-tonk hopping. You can hear world-class bands every night of the week in the District, along with literally thousands of up-and-comers who play cheap early shows and pick out chords on the street corners, hoping against hope to be “discovered.” The purple walls at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge have borne witness to 50 years of Nashville history; it’s a good place to start or end the night. Robert’s Western World is good for burgers, beer, booze and boots (seriously, you can buy cowboy boots here). Its house band, Brazilbilly, does country with a pinch of Latin heat. A mixed-age crowd whoops it up at the multilevel Wildhorse Saloon, with its vast dance floor and free, nightly line-dancing lessons. Bourbon Street Blues & Boogie Bar, down Printers Alley, has a rum-soaked party vibe and hip-wiggling blues.
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COUNTRY’S COMING OF AGE
Country music was not born in Nashville, but it came of age here - until the 1920s it was called “old time” or “hillbilly” music. In 1925, Nashville began hosting a live radio program, Barn Dance, broadcast from the National Life & Accident Insurance Company building downtown. The show, which later became known as the Grand Ole Opry, set the foundations of the modern country music industry, drawing stars like Roy Acruff and Minnie Pearl. Music studios soon followed.
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Over the river in East Nashville, the Family Wash is a hip gastropub with live music in a former corner Laundromat. Make a pit stop here for a late-ish dinner of chorizo pizza and a pint of Hefeweizen, and dig the hypercharged neo-country of former David Bowie guitarist Reeves Gabrels. Double back to finish out the night at the Station Inn, just south of downtown. Inside this anonymous stone building is one of the country’s top bluegrass and acoustic music venues.
Emily Matchar
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TRIP INFORMATION
GETTING THERE
From Memphis,