From Sea To Shining Sea - "Music City USA" (Nashville, USA)
/Dates of travel: 29 April 2013 to 1 May 2013
Location of travel: Nashville, United States of America
Over the course of April and May 2013, I took a month-long meander across the USA. The main reason was to attend and report on the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California. The road to and from there was just as memorable. This is Part 3 in a series of 5 articles.
A Sort Of Homecoming
Nearly a decade ago, I was a nervous teenage boy facing another significant overseas trip.
I was to trade my home and high school in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, with Nashville, Tennessee, and embark on a three-month academic exchange to an all-boys private school in the Volunteer State. It wasn't my first time travelling overseas, but it was my first solo sojourn abroad.
So for the fall semester of 2004, I lived with two host families and had the honour of attending Montgomery Bell Academy, with whom my school had partnered the previous year. During your mid-teens, you're already going through so many physical, emotional, and hormonal changes—so why not undergo a massive locational one?
Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee
My time at MBA was a watershed moment in my life, aiding in an emotional and musical maturity that I have become deeply grateful for in the years since.
Nashville is known as 'Music City' because it is a major recording and performance centre, and not just for country music, as stereotypes of the state’s capital would suggest.
Nashville residents have an appreciation for a wide variety of musical genres, including classic rock, blues, jazz, and hip-hop. When I first visited the city as an out-of-touch teen, I was amazed by the diverse musical tastes of my hosts and the people I met, which encompassed decades and genres that my young mind was hardly even aware of.
This marked maturity in their musical palette surely could not just be chalked up to having musically minded parents or siblings with a large collection of old records. In three short months, I was steered towards artists I had not necessarily grown up with and was encouraged to think outside of what was being presented to me as an angsty kid via MTV or radio.
Returning to Nashville a decade later was not unlike returning to a childhood home. The place still remains, but how much of you do too?
Old Haunts, Fresh Starts
In the intervening years, I had limited interaction with my two hosts from 2004. The timing of this cross-country trip from California synced up with the first family being in town and my host himself. This was a miracle, given that he was a military man now training to be a United States Marine, just like his father before him.
Back in our teens, we struggled to relate to each other, our cultures clashing at a very turbulent time in adolescence. But growing through high school and university allowed hormones to settle and some life to be lived as adults. We each emerged as assured young men, now discovering that we actually have a lot in common when we met up again. The reconciliation was an unexpected personal triumph and healing moment I thought I might never have.
Three months in 2004 allowed for significant sightseeing, even as a minor, so I was fortunate back then to tick off many of the major attractions in and around Nashville. Some of these included:
attending three American football games at the Tennessee Titans home ground (The Coliseum);
two visits to my one host's lake house just out of town (once for Thanksgiving);
the Country Music Hall of Fame;
Vanderbilt University;
the Parthenon.
My host was aware of this and specially tailored an itinerary that would help me tune into parts of Nashville that I might not have seen or appreciated a decade ago as an under-21.
Catching up over a liquid lunch was first on the agenda. Over a few fine brews at Yazoo, we plotted plans for a reintroduction to the Music City. Despite being a local, he had yet to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame, and I was open to seeing the museum again with a fresh perspective. Let’s drink to that.
Elvis, Johnny, And Some Blue Suede Shoes
Even if you're not a country music fan, the Country Music Hall of Fame is a surprisingly interesting and informative institution.
It draws many strands of influences from early blues and rock 'n' roll that developed alongside country music, and it’s worth the rollicking ride through their intertwined history.
The Country Music Hall of Fall In Nashville, Tennessee
This was not something I had picked up on my first visit to the museum.
Barely having a working knowledge of rock 'n roll history meant that it was all rather perplexing at the time, and any overlap between genres or significant figures across both fields was lost on me. Now armed with a better understanding of popular music history, I was more receptive to the place, and the museum revealed the melting pot of music that country, blues, folk, and rock came from.
Despite the popularity and illustrious history of country music, I, like many people outside of the United States who have only a surface-level appreciation of the genre, have always seen it as a quintessentially American phenomenon, associated with cowboy hats and soundtracked with the twang of American accents from the South. But listen closer and there’s always been crossover success between the chords.
Early on, you had Elvis Presley in the Fifties, who bridged his way into the role of King of Rock, while Dolly Parton’s songwriting prowess was proved with pop standards like ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’. Into the Nineties, Johnny Cash's swan-song 'American' albums had a doom-laden folk feel, which brought in fans of alt-rockers like Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden with surprising aplomb.
Johnny was performing covers of ‘Hurt’ and ‘Rusty Cage’ at the same time as country music was going arena-pop with the likes of Garth Brooks. The current crop of country music, which includes Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and Lady Antebellum, continues the genre's stadium-sized swell on the pop charts. This fact is frequently acknowledged in the museum as an increasingly globalised world grows smaller and smaller, and American culture is appreciated for all its once-regional roots.
But if you're just a sentimental history buff, you'll appreciate the passion with which they have preserved the genre's history, honouring those who have represented it best and even surprising second-time visitors like myself.
The exhibits included many famous personal items, such as Carl Perkins' original ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, Elvis Presley's beautifully maintained Solid Gold Cadillac, and a dapper black suit worn by the 'Man in Black', Johnny Cash. But did you know that there was a branch of country that found roots in Bakersfield, California, of all places?
This was the most interesting thing I learned from my second visit to the CMHF. Back in the Fifties, what became known as the 'Bakersfield Sound' started as a reaction against the slickly produced, string orchestra-laden 'Nashville Sound'—showing us that not all country music came from 'The South', as it may often seem.
More Than Just Country
The Country Music Hall of Fame may have been the main course, but many musical sights were still left to sample during my few days in Nashville. Heading downtown to the city's entertainment district is a good place to do this, where you can find:
a newly-opened Johnny Cash museum (where video screens projected a variety of performances and documentaries of the man and his work);
the Music City Walk of Fame Park (opened in 2006, drawing inspiration from the one in Hollywood);
the massive new Nashville Convention Center, whose architecture evokes the look of a guitar;
Lower Broadway, a place packed with music clubs and honky-tonk bars, which was bustling with people performing on stage despite it being a midweek afternoon.
Although not a Nashville native, Jack White of The White Stripes fame has set up shop Downtown with the Grammy-Award-winning independent record label, studio, and store Third Man Records. Unfortunately Mr White was not there to greet us in person, but his seven-nation army of music in vinyl form was an appropriate compromise.
Third Man Records, Nashville, Tennessee
The store only features music produced by artists on the record label (such as The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, and Jack's solo work) and having never grown up with vinyl records myself, I was intrigued by the label's steadfast commitment to keeping the format alive by issuing limited-edition live LPs and tiny 7-inch singles.
If Third Man’s roster isn’t enough, why not try making an icky thump yourself with the in-store personal recording booth?
The refurbished 1947 Voice-o-Graph machine is a nostalgic yet novel concept for a record store, allowing visitors to record up to two minutes of audio and receive a one-of-a-kind vinyl pressing right there and then.
Apparently this kind of tech has long fallen out of fashion, so the Third Man booth is now the only Voice-o-Graph in the world that is both operational and open to the public. So cherish what they still have there before they must ‘Call It A Day’.
The Best Band Name In The World
Visiting Music City without attending a gig would be criminal. On my second night in Nashville, I toed the line and headed to The Stone Fox, a small restaurant/bar with a bandstand for live music.
On this rare occasion, I went for the opening act. As great as the New York-based punk band The Men were, we came ready to witness the joy and chaos of a local punk band with quite possibly the best band name in the world: Diarrhea Planet. Disgusting name, yes—but they were even filthier at their game.
One of the first thoughts one has when listening to a Diarrhea Planet song is, "That’s a lot of guitars.” Surely there must be lots of overdubs or something? When I looked onstage, I saw not one, not two, not three, but FOUR GUITARISTS, along with a bassist and drummer.
The band, barely able to fit together on the tiny stage, roared into life while rationing out sub-2-minute riff-fests to a crowd the size of a house party. The bandstand was just above floor level, and I was so close to the action that one of the guitarists almost whacked me on the head with his axe as he literally leapt into what could have easily been a face-melting solo.
Diarrhea Planet’s self-described sound is "Ramones holding Van Halen hostage with an arsenal of fireworks and explosives", which is as succinct a description as you can get for their flammable, layered sound. In the charred aftermath, we got to reap the bonus of a gig as tiny as this one.
As the dudes hung out with the crowd afterwards, I enjoyed a drink and a chat with a few of the band members, including long-haired lead singer Jordan and big-bearded drummer Casey. His enigmatic playing was as booming as John Bonham and as manic as Keith Moon, so of course I excitedly told him that in person. After so many stellar performances on this trip, it was fun being able to compliment the artist in person and in conversation.
Alma Materdom And The Vinyl Frontier
A return to my alma mater, even though I had been a student for only a few months, was definitely on the cards while I was back in town. So on my final day in Nashville, I got to run through the halls of my high school (but thankfully didn't need to scream at the top of my lungs).
As expected nearly a decade later, there would be new buildings, such as an entire English block, a grand dining hall that replaced the old cafeteria, and a soccer field on top of a parking garage. But stepping into the administration block took me back to my very first day there as an awkward teen, trying to make sense of this new school and how I would fit into it as a foreign exchange student.
The Director of Counseling Services from back then still held the same position and was in the office. She was the guardian angel responsible for ensuring that I even got to the States in 2004, as a shift in visa requirements around that time necessitated more paperwork and delays than we expected.
2004 AND 2013. Same spot, same people.
She also helps exchange students settle into the MBA way of life, and with the school receiving dozens of them from all over the world every year, it's a mammoth task—in addition to sending many young men overseas in return. We recreated the pose from that fraught first day, grateful again to have her by my side, and this time just to give thanks for all the guidance.
The link we have to our pasts loomed large over me as my host took our final stop of the musical meandering: Nashville's premier independent record store, Grimey's New & Preloved Music.
Grimey's New & Preloved Music, Nashville, Tennessee
Nowadays, we likely consume music through different mediums than our parents and grandparents did in the past, be it via CDs or digital downloads onto MP3 players.
Holding an actual vinyl record in your hands, admiring the original large album artwork, reading the liner notes—those tangible moments interacting with the music and the artist's vision have now gradually become an online experience.
I tried to put myself in the shoes of a young man in the Sixties or Seventies, standing in an old face-brick building like this one, with wooden racks of records set out before him, holding the latest LP from The Who or The Rolling Stones in his hands.
It all feels from a bygone era, but thankfully, we have the choice to keep the spirit alive as moves towards purity, authenticity, and aesthetics have made the purchase of vinyl records a niche market now among audiophiles, DJ's, and those who value the aura of an album experience.
Grimey's doesn't just sell new records but also preserves the love of vinyl by selling and trading 'preloved' (second-hand) items. One of the rooms inside is an actual listening booth consisting of two turntables, sets of headphones, and a stack of obscure, lesser-known records that are available to listen to at your leisure. I picked an old blues record from one of the racks, pulled out a foreign-looking frisbee-sized black disc, and gently placed it on the turntable.
To be honest, I can count the number of times on my left hand that I've used one of those things, but the ritual was oddly satisfying as a fan of music.
A few crackles and pops preceded the opening chords from an acoustic guitar, and then I was immediately transported into a timeless place where all music listeners had been before. A place where it's just you and the music, and the rest of the world ceases to exist.
It doesn't matter whether you're in Nashville or Naples, or whether the music is coming from a record player or your iPod; once the music starts, you hear nothing else. And that’s a feeling I could relate to as the record revolved round, and round, and round…
Writer Kurt Duvel’s 5-part series ‘From Sea To Shining Sea’ takes you on his month-long meander across the USA. His fifth and final stop is New York City, a diverse metropolis of skyscrapers and scenic views which continue to entice, even on his third bite of 'The Big Apple'.