Bluebird

We did so many things in Nashville, that I really didn't have enough time to write about most of them so I'll just comment on them over the next couple of days as I have some free time.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was a visit to the famous Bluebird Cafe. This is a very small intimate venue that has showcased local songwriters and musicians for over 25 years.

It is a staple of the Nashville music scene and has hosted a lot of musicians that polished or developed their craft there. People like

Garth Brooks
Kim Carnes
Carol King
Kris Kristofferson
Faith Hill
Cowboy Junkies
Bonnie Raitt

and on and on and on.

We were treated a In the Round session comprised of four musicians that are loosely related due to three of them being on the same record label.

Tom Kimmel

Brent Moyer

Hugh Moffat

Hunter Moore

They would take turns playing one of their original songs and the other musicians would either reverently listen or join in for some harmony or guitar work.

Our seats were so good that Christine could literally reach out and be able to touch the shoulder of one of the performers.















Brent Moyer






























Christine with Hugh and Brent in the background















L to R (Hunter, Tom, Hugh)

The performers were all different but each were extremely talented professional musicians.

My impressions were that Hunter had the most polished "craft" in terms of construction of a song. He demonstrated a variety of styles like a downhome blues number, a funny semi-conversational toned song and an almost spiritual song about his childhood.

I thought Brent was the best guitar player of the bunch and would play a lot of the solos for the others. His songs were more bar room country romps. Feel good numbers but then he wowed me with a very sweet romantic ballad.

Hugh had the purest singing voice. He also had some very amusing anecdotes to his songs. His songs were mostly mournful love songs that tended to strayed a little too close to being over the top but I'm a sap so I loved them. One of his fans, played an CD of a 10 year old album to the top DJ in Australia who liked it so much that he played it non stop. Next thing you know, one of the songs is the number 1 tune down under. Hilarious. He's had some famous musicians record and perform his songs including Dolly Parton, Alabama, Merle Haggard, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Tom was the favorite of Christine and I and I personally think he is a genius. He has a sort of raw singing voice and his songs just cut right to the quick of you. I bought a CD of his music and he explained it is an album comprised of rough first or second cut recordings of his songs. He then recorded more polished versions but his producer actually preferred the raw versions of the songs and encouraged him to use those instead. I have to agree with his assessment. Great stuff.

A very enjoyable evening and another reason to love Nashville.

Country Music Hall of Fame

No visit to Nashville would be complete without a little Country Music. I’ll be honest with you, I know next to nothing about Country music beyond some Patsy Cline and the occasional Johnny Cash. I vaguely remember some Kenny Rogers Gambler movie that I saw on TV. I also seem to remember watching a little Hee-Haw when I was about 9 years old. My latest impressions have been that Country is now essentially interchangeable with pop music. Lots of overproduced “crossover” music.



With that being said, I didn’t know what to expect from our visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame yesterday. First off, the building itself is wonderful. It’s got a sort of modern industrial look to it, with lots of exposed steel, glass and wooden floors designed by local architect Tuck Hinton and Associates. Hats off. I’ll also note that whomever did the A/C work did a spectacular job with the tough spaces they had to work with.















The hall is three stories tall. The displays themselves range from showcase style displays of memorabilia to interactive displays. There were two featured displays. The first was Kitty Wells “The Queen of Country Music” . I have to claim ignorance here and I’m sorry to say I hadn’t previously heard of her. She is most notable for being the first woman with a big country hit that demonstrated that women could be commercially viable. The display include lots of personal jewelry, clothing, photos and some video of performances.







































The second was a large interactive display of the Hank Williams family. Lots of photos and personal items. I know of Hank Williams and I know that Hank Jr is a big star, but again, know next to nothing about them. The displays included video interviews of Hank Jr and his children which were informative and touching. The interactive display was a sort of video scrap book where you could browse along and read old newspaper articles. I was so pooped out from trying to drink everything in on the floor above that I really couldn’t focus enough attention on this stuff.

My favorite display was a series of listening “booths” called “Rediscover a Classic” where you would find a very nice display of a classic 45 record and a recording to enjoy. Some real offbeat yodeling or borderline crooner stuff. It appears that they rotate these pretty regularly.

Which brings me to another impressive facet of the Hall. They archive and preserve a massive amount of recordings. Take a look at the shelves upon shelves of recordings and the recording equipment where they systematically transfer the recordings to tape for preservation.































There were also lots of video displays of rare early footage of performers. I particularly liked one of the Jordanairres, a gospel quartet and will definitely be looking them up.

There was also a particularly well done, “Country Music in TV and the Movies” ½-hour semi-documentary that ended with Johnny Cash doing his version of the Nine Inch Nails song, “Hurt” where he reflects on his life to a montage of images from his past. It is by far the better version of the song and hits you like a ton of bricks.

There were also some really off the wall items being displayed such as















Carl Perkin’s “Blue Suede Shoes”






























































Webb Pierce’s “Silver Dollar Convertible” complete with six-gun door handles.















Elvis Presley’s “Solid Gold Piano”

Lots of stage jackets and gowns too including this lovely Patsy Cline one.




















Elvis may have been the King of Rock N Roll but boy did he have tacky taste.

Now from tacky to classy. Take a look at the wall of gold records lining the rotunda wall.















The display makes quite an impression. The record display continues on some interior walls where you can listen to quite a few of them by hitting a button on the display. Nice touch.

















































"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash"

After, all that, the presentation Hall of Fame plaque room was a bit of a let down. The room was a bit plain and a some of the lettering on the displays didn't match the original font when the artist's year of death was added to a previously made plaque. A minor complaint, but it felt a little cheap to me.
















































I enjoyed the visit very much. The presentation really showed the breadth and depth of the genre and really opened my eyes to how much variety there is in "Country" music.

Pansies

We're in Nashville, TN on vacation. Christine ran the Country Music Marathon on Saturday and we are sticking around for a few days to sightsee. Yesterday was an action packed day. One of the highlights was visiting the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens where the Pansies were in bloom. Cheekwood was the mansion and grounds built by Christopher Cheek and Mabel Wood who made their money in Maxwell House coffee! The home and gardens are beautiful.

Here are some photos of the pansies for your enjoyment. I'm sure they all have different names but I was too lazy to record them. Hey, I AM on vacation, you know.




















































































































































Some more photos of the grounds can be found here. Cameras weren't allowed at the mansion. Too bad because there was a pretty good Faberge exhibit there, including 3 "Imperial Eggs".