Music City, Nashville, U.S.A.

Music Everywhere

Downtown Nashville’s main street, Broadway, is lined with honky-tonk bars. If you’re like me and didn’t grow up with country music, you are probably scratching your head and wondering what a honky-tonk really is. It’s nothing more than a cheap bar where country music is being played. Now, the cheap part really is debatable!

It was so much fun walking along the neon-lit stores and cafes. Music from lesser known musicians was protruding through open windows and doors everywhere. I’m sure many were hoping to catch their break just like most of the big name country artists once did.

We recognized several bars owned by renowned singers-songwriters. Because Maarten and I love Luke Bryan’s music, we had to have a drink at Luke’s 32 Bridge, a bar owned by this country star and tastefully decorated with Bryan paraphernalia. The drink menu sported drinks like That’s My Kind of Night and Country Girl, cocktails named after some of his popular songs. So fun!

From here we made our way to the Music City Walk of Fame. It was created to pay tribute to artists across different generations, who created, recorded and performed music in Nashville. Each honoree is commemorated with a large granite star embedded in the sidewalk of the park. To my surprise I recognized several names, many of which I had no clue they made a name for themselves in Nashville. I saw Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Keith Urban, and Amy Grant, just to name a few. This tiny and cute park is definitely a work in the making but I was glad we walked through it.

The Man in Black

We couldn’t visit Nashville without learning more about the legendary Johnny Cash. At the museum dedicated to this super star, I found out he wore a lot of black outfits. So that’s where the name Man in Black comes from! Epiphany!

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit at this tiny museum that boasts the largest collection of Johnny Cash memorabilia in the world! It was a neat to see his handwritten song compositions and lyrics, complete with doodles and all. Although the wall with all his hits and recordings was impressive too, as were the gold records on display. While wandering through the exhibit I couldn’t help but think that this artist was a larger-than-life, multifaceted man full of contradictions. He embraced tradition and was a devout Christian, yet he followed the freedom of his creative mind and acted as a rebel at times. No wonder he was so conflicted at times.

This visit begged me to watch the movie Walk the Line again. And you bet I did!

Old Hickory’s Place

A little outside of Nashville lies the Andrew Jackson Hermitage. It was the plantation home of Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States. He was nicknamed Old Hickory because during his time as a general in the War of 1812, his toughness and determination reminded his men of a firmly rooted hickory tree that produces dense, hard and shock resistant wood.

The Hermitage is one of the best preserved presidential mansions so I was excited to be able to visit this house. Our tour started out in the entry hall where we were treated to a magnificent spiral staircase and beautifully printed wallpaper that displayed Greek scenes. The splendor and grandeur of the hallway was used by the Jackson’s to show of their wealth as it was here that they first greeted invited guests. The demonstration of wealth was very important to Andrew Jackson because he felt like he constantly had to prove himself considering his commoner’s background.

The superbly decorated dining room served the same purpose. Our guide told us that it was purposely painted an extremely high gloss blue so that the natural light that seeped through the windows could be reflected as much as possible. This not only brightened up the room but it also created the illusion of it being bigger than it actually was. How ingenious!

In contrast, the back parlor was much more mondaine and informal. And it was here that the family spend time together. Family bonding was extremely important to the former President especially because he was orphaned at a young age.

A fun fact our guide shared waas that Jackson only spend money on the facade of his house. Indeed, the front of the mansion looked splendid. However, no attention was paid to the side and back and it showed plain bricks instead of pristine white washed and decorated walls. I couldn’t believe it when I heard that all those bricks were made by his slaves! Some of the stones even showed fingerprint indentations!

Our docent did an outstanding job shedding light on the lives of the enslaved who lived at the Hermitage. More than 150 slaves, men, women and children, lived and worked on the plantation. The story of Alfred was probably the most memorable of all. Born at the cotton plantation, Alfred tended the horses and was Andrew Jackson’s personal man-servant. He lived in a slave log cabin that only had a door, two puny windows and housed no less than 20 people!

Alfred stayed on as a tenant farmer after the emancipation and took the last name Jackson. (slaves were not given last names) After the mansion fell into disrepair, Alfred was able to purchase a few pieces of the original furniture, which he cherished tremendously. Years later, he was asked if he would be willing to sell the pieces to refurnish the mansion as a museum. He agreed on one condition: he insisted he’d be buried alongside the President and his wife. And so there laid Alfred, last name Jackson, next to President Andrew Jackson.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Alfred was simply trying to say that “He who laughs last, laughs best,” or if he really wanted to be buried next to the President out of respect.

After the tour, we continued exploring the grounds and wandered to the field slaves’ cabins. The wandering turned into quite a walk when we ended up at the former cotton fields. But it was the perfect activity to decompress my brain that was trying to process all the evil and ugliness of treating human beings as possessions and inferiors.