Waltzing through Tennessee

Next up on “Trips We Said We’d Take Someday”: Nashville!

Yes, Nashville.

I have wanted to visit Music City since the mid-90s when I saw it from a window seat on a very clear cross-country flight one October. My interest was stoked about a decade later when we had a Southwest Airlines layover and walked between two distant BNA gates. The live music, the friendly vibe, and palpable energy of just the airport alone made me want to check out what awaited outside Security.

Last week, Rob and I finally realized a decades-held dream and Did Nashville. With a side trip to Memphis. Because Elvis.

The Grand Ole Opry has been in this location
since 1974. The architecture told us that before
the brochure did.

Overall, I would say it was a very good trip but it wasn’t a great trip. I had pretty high expectations, especially since every.single.person I mentioned our travel plans to said, “I LOVE NASHVILLE!” I had no idea I knew so many people who had visited Nashville nor that I was so dang late to the party.

But, unfortunately, Rob and I weren’t at our physical best during the trip. We were both already exhausted by lots of activity and responsibilities at home (we absolutely suck at retirement), plus Rob was navigating a bout with vertigo. It was gone by the time we boarded the plane in Portland, but we didn’t know that for sure until days later. So we were rather tentative most of the trip and I did a lot more driving than I typically do.

Adding to the disappointment was the realization that tours of the Grand Ole Opry were cancelled for the week due to preparations for a People’s Choice Country Music awards show featuring very few people Rob and I had ever heard of. And that was the last little bit of rain on our Tennessee parade: we aren’t county music fans. Yes, we knew that. But I didn’t quite grasp how much not knowing Jelly Roll from a jelly donut would dampen our appreciation of All Things Nashville. But despite all that, we did have a fun time. I just didn’t fall in love with the city like I expected to.

The closest we got to the Grand Ole
Opry, as seen through a glass door.
Security guard out of frame to the left.

We were able to hit most of the Required Touristy Highlights including Opryland, the Ryman Theater, Music Row, the Johnny Cash Museum, the County Music Hall of Fame, Broadway and its Honky Tonks, and a trolley tour which took us by the Parthenon replica and Vanderbilt University allowing us to admire both from a distance.

An unplanned detour back to our outskirts hotel one night took us through a swanky neighborhood inhabited by Reese Witherspoon and Faith Hill and her husband (I only know Ms. Hill by her 1999 crossover hit “Breathe” – her husband is apparently also famous and wears a cowboy hat a lot? He, however, is NOT the guy married to Nicole Kidman who has a boy's version of Jennifer Aniston's hairdo. For some reason I always get those two dudes confused. Is one of them named Kenny??). That Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous interlude was sort of fun and once again proved the value of unlimited data allowing for on-the-spot critical research while sitting in the passenger seat.

The Opryland Resort reminded me 
of the Venetian and Parisian hotels
in Las Vegas, minus the casinos. Lots
of indoor plants and shops and restaurants
and walkways. And...boat rides. It 
was expansive and clearly best enjoyed
on a company expense account. SO
many conference lanyards!

Inside the Ryman Auditorium - the location of the
Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974. It is actually 
a church with great acoustics - and old wooden
pews for seating. It had a very authentic feel.

The Microphone in the Ryman
-- also called The Pulpit

Minnie Pearl helped make the Grand
Ole Opry and the Ryman famous.
The actress who played her was very
highly educated, trained, and
generously philanthropic. 

My only photo from Music Row. This is an 
uncharacteristically professional building
for the street of recording studios. Most of the
studios were in small, old houses. It was
clearly an old neighborhood turned Street of Dreams.

I didn't take any photos in the Johnny Cash
Museum. However, highlights included
conclusively learning Johnny did NOT
serve any prison time, and deciding the
best format for music is vinyl at 78 rpm.
Very cool display with one of Johnny's songs
played on the various formats. CD was surprisingly
boring, and re-engineered digital was horrific. I
liked the depth of sound on the 78 rpm without the
staticy hiss of the slower speeds. 

There wasn't anything in the 
Country Music Hall of Fame 
that prompted me to take a photo.
However, one display for the 
lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish
had a song playing that I liked. I 
asked Siri to identify it so I could buy
the mp3. I had no idea this was a cover of
a song originally recorded by Bob Dylan
in the early 1970s. Apparently I like old country music?

Broadway in broad daylight.

We enjoyed some decidedly regional cuisine. Our first dinner was at Hattie B’s Hot Chicken. This Nashville must-eat was apparently inadvertently invented by a pissed off gal trying to exact culinary revenge on her cheatin’ boyfriend. She made him fried chicken but doused it with every hot spice and pepper she could find in her pantry. Unfortunately for her, the jerk loved it and turned it into a livelihood.

Hot chicken, mac n cheese, and slaw.
Mmmm! One of the spices seemed to 
be cinnamon. I liked it but it was 
sort of odd mixed in with the cayenne and 
chili pepper.

My favorite meal of the trip was at Robert’s Western World – a fixture of a honky tonk on the very noisy and lively Broadway. Think Bourbon Street with cowboy hats. The street was loud and peopled enough at noon that we never felt the need to venture back after 10pm. Live county music, laughter, and restaurant clinking sounds came from every doorway and open window. The energy was pretty electrifying!

Ever the introverts, we snagged a table
upstairs so we could enjoy the honking
and tonking from a distance. We so
thoroughly enjoyed the Chis Casello Trio
that we bought their CD on the way out.
They were incredibly good and we had a
hard time imagining who might top them
later in the evening.  To quote Rob, "They ruined
live music for me forever." Truly, it was exactly
the experience I wanted -- very local food in a 
very local bar listening to very local music.

We decided on Robert’s for dinner because of a famed “Recession Special” – a fried bologna sandwich, a PBR beer, and a Moon Pie for dessert…all for only $6! Drawn much more by the redneckiness and less by the $6, I was thrilled to discover fried bologna on Wonder Bread is pretty dang tasty! Made even more exotic by the tiniest hint of horseradish. I already knew I didn’t like Pabst Blue Ribbon (an ironic favorite in Portland), but it did pair rather nicely with the lunch meat. The Moon Pie, on the other hand, was just gross. I was hoping for so much more. It was Peep-like marshmallow filling between two sawdusty cookies covered in a light film of cheap chocolate. The wrapper suggested heating it up in the microwave for “an out-of-this-world dessert!” I doubt it. The adorably named competitor “Goo Goo Cluster” impulsively procured at the airport was MUCH better.

Not the best photo -- the lighting was
challenging. But enough to get an idea
what a fried bologna sandwich looks like.
And is Gen X the only generation that sings
while they spell b-o-l-o-g-n-a?

As mentioned, we didn’t limit our Tennessee fun to Nashville. Nope. We also spent one VERY long day driving to and from Memphis (6 hours of driving) for All Things Elvis. While I wouldn’t call myself a huge Elvis fan, I do enjoy his music (especially the early stuff) and I respect his place in history. My most distinct memory of him is the day he died (I was 9) and being confused why so many grown ups were crying. After having now visited Graceland, I get it.

I had done very little research about Graceland, other than to buy tickets online for the self-guided house and airplanes tour. I was expecting a grand mansion tucked away on sprawling acreage with lots of security, and a properly appointed gift store housed in a garage or servants’ quarters. The private aircraft would be in a private hangar somewhere on the property. The décor would be expensive and flashy, sort of King-like.

Instead, Graceland was a total 1977 time warp situated on a busy street (named Elvis Presley Blvd) with neighbors just over the fence. Although the house itself is over 17,000 square feet, it did not feel even half that. Of course, the public is not allowed upstairs where the bedrooms and bathrooms are. There were a couple of outdoor buildings serving as an office and a gym and racquetball court. There was a small reflecting pool “Meditation Garden” where Elvis, his parents, his daughter, and a grandson are buried. And there were some horses and stables. So yeah, typing all that it does sound like an extensive and extravagant lifestyle. But it just didn’t feel like it. It felt homey and kitschy and very personal. It felt “of the people” – like a small-town boy hit the jackpot but kept a sense of where he had come from. Graceland was probably the most iconic home I have ever been in and it was so incredibly unique that I fell in love with it purely for what it represents. And the monkey.

Pretty much the whole house, minus the basement.
Piglet on steps for size reference.

I was both stunned and delighted to see this kitchen.
It took me right back to the '70s. I'm certain there
is Tupperware in the cabinets. I was struck by how
middle class it looks. Not at all what I expected
royalty to make banana and peanut butter sandwiches
in (I had one for lunch in one of the themed restaurants. I
liked it but I did NOT like the bacon grease it was
fried in. Eeeew. A local gal absolutely could not believe
I don't have a jar of bacon grease for cooking. I
explained that would require me cooking bacon, which
I don't. I'm pretty sure her head is still shaking.)

I think my mouth literally fell open when
I entered The Pool Room. The ceiling and walls
are covered in very carefully folded fabric in a
vortexy pattern. Oooh, vertigo.

The TV room, with a bar out of photo range.
Elvis loved watching football and had 3 TVs
so he could watch multiple games at once.
There was no explanation for the monkey.

Called "The Den" by Elvis and "The
Jungle Room" by the media, this room
was a trip. The brick wall is a waterfall.

The ceiling was carpeted. It deadened
noise so well, Elvis recorded an album
in here. Can't imagine where he sat -
absolutely none of the seats looked sittable.

As for the aircraft and gift shop, those were across the street in a Downtown Disney-like campus of restaurants, stores, and exhibits. Merchandised within an inch of its life, each aspect of Elvis’s life had its own gift shop. One focused on movies, another on his airplanes, another on his car collection, and oh, right, one focused on his music.

Two-story exhibit walls displayed awards – probably not all of them. There was one room dedicated to showcasing Elvis’s stage jumpsuits. Another room had lots and lots of boxes in locked display cases, all numbered and categorized in the archives. Some items were out of their boxes, giving a highly unique peek into The King’s life. It was a trip and I was fascinated.

Just one wall of several.

Just one wall of several. I LOVED
this room and how the iconic costumes
were displayed. I also learned that when 
Elvis played Vegas, he wore only white
jumpsuits so the lighting techs could
switch colors on him without him 
needing wardrobe changes. Brilliant!

Of note: Elvis had his own fountain drink
dispenser. Also, Tab.

I guess when you are a legend, even
the most mundane items are worth
archiving for posterity.

That time Elvis didn't like what was
on TV.

As I mazed my way through the exhibits and artifacts, my appreciation for Elvis’s place in history grew. I found myself marveling at the impact of a single man – on music, on people, on the world. Indeed, there was an entire exhibit of clothing and instruments belonging to other musicians with plaques expressing how Elvis inspired and influenced their lives and music.

We had started our tour of Memphis at Sun Records – the recording studio where Elvis recorded his first of many records on the label. Like Graceland, the studio was a time warp. Unlike Graceland, it is still in use with recording artists using the studio and its assortment of instruments in the wee hours after the tourists have left.

Unexpectedly small and modest.

The Sun recording studio was a small, linoleumed, unassuming space steeped in rock-n-roll history. Our tour guide was a musician who could barely believe her day job was to hang out in The Place Where Rock Began. I could barely believe I was allowed to stand there without glass or ropes and try to soak in the significance of the room. Between Sun Records and Mission Control in Houston, this has been quite a year of historic rooms!

Pretty much the entire room where
music history was made.

When we learned the Grand Ole Opry was closed for the week, and Rob was only at about 60% capacity, I assumed we would be making a second trip to Nashville someday. But, honestly, I think we did and saw and ate all that we really wanted to and could appreciate. I apparently know a lot of county western music fans.

Actually, I CAN envision a perfect return to Nashville: a concert by Darius Rucker in the Ryman with a 2-night stay at the Opryland Resort paid for by someone else. With a fried bologna sandwich for dinner, hold the Moon Pie.