Every alley in Nashville downtown seems to have another string of bars and restaurants - and a lot of great ones. Heard some blues, had some great food (and a pear/cinnamon cocktail which was amazing), and glad the rain stopped today. Nashville's metro is growing fast at over 2 million. Named after Revolutionary War General Francis Nash and founded in 1779 Nashville has been a commercial hub on the Cumberland River and was a strategic city during the Civil War - it was also the first southern capital to be captured by the Union Army.
Visited the Ryman auditorium in downtown Nashville which is a church, but beginning in the early 1900s events were booked by Lula Naff to support the building economically. The first sold-out event was Helen Keller and her teacher in 1913. Many major national music and theatre acts followed with the Ryman hailed as the 'Carnegie Hall of the South'. WSM radio's 'Grand Ole Opry' was 4 years old and heard across some 30 states on AM radio when it moved to Ryman in 1943 and broadcast from there weekly for 31 years before moving out of downtown to its new Opryland location. Ryman also was the birthplace of bluegrass in 1945 when a concert by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs debuted 'the new southern sound'. Because it was built as a church, there was no real backstage and nominal dressing rooms, so the performers often started and ended the nights in the bars on Broadway close to the Ryman which sparked the plethora of music bars in the area. Interestingly (I think), Garrison Keillor was inspired by doing a New Yorker story on the final show of the Grand Ole Opry to create Prairie Home Companion. Following a period of disuse and deterioration of about 20 years the Ryman was refurbished - and Prairie Home Companion was the first broadcast from the renovated venue in 1994.
Tomorrow we start a 5 day stretch during which we'll bike 550 miles and gain over 30,000 feet of elevation - no question with the steepness of the hills and the distance and amount of climbing this will be a tough finish - here we go... :)
 |
| Yay, a bar for me! |
 |
| Broadway |
 |
| The Ryman |
 |
| Old school counter service cafeteria |
Great stuff. There’s no doubt about it.Nashvile is a hot town. I just heard a statistic that about 2000 people a day are moving to Nashville. It’s becoming a foodie destination too. In anyone of those bars you are very likely to hear a professional quality musician who just hasn’t broken big yet. Pedal hard through those mountains!
ReplyDelete