This day I spent almost entirely on my own, indulging my musical passions.
In the morning, while Terry went off to a Weight Watchers meeting with Ashley, I drove into downtown Nashville, parked the car in an all day lot, and walked to the Johnny Cash Museum:
I was interested to notice that the building actually houses two museums - the Johnny Cash museum downstairs, and a Patsy Cline museum upstairs.
Again, I didn't take many pictures - actually, only two:
A wall of Cash singles
A wall of Cash albums
As with the Civil Rights Museum, there was so much content that it became overwhelming. The Wikipedia article (w) gives a good description of the museum and its exhibits. One thing that stands out in my mind was set of listening stations where you could listen to recordings of Johnny Cash songs covered by other artists - the good, the bad and the weird. ("I Walk The Line" by Leonard Nimoy? "Ring Of Fire" by Blondie?)
After I left the museum, I hopped on a Lyft scooter and scooted to a restaurant called Puckett's (no relation to Gary) for lunch with Terry and Ashley, and Ashley's friend Jeannie (who had recommended the restaurant). The place featured Pimento Cheese Sandwiches, which are apparently a big thing in the South.
After lunch, I struck out on foot for my next stop, the Musician's Hall Of Fame and Museum:
Along the way, I took this picture of an impressive looking church, just because it looked... well, impressive:
I noticed that there were a lot of churches all over Nashville - this was, of course, the Bible Belt. Unlike this church, most of the churches I saw had spires.
I also passed this tribute to another of Nashville's favorite sons, Chet Atkins:
Notice the empty stool. I think that's so people can sit down with their guitar, and have friends take a picture of them playing a duet with Chet. Also notice the reflection in the plate glass window of some tourist (ahem) taking a picture.
Well, you know what I'm going to say about the museum. Overwhelmed again. But this time, I don't have a good Wikipedia article to fall back on. So I'll have to exercise my memory. Here are some of things I remember:
There was also a section of the museum devoted to a Jimi Hendrix exhibit. At the entrance to the exhibit was a wall of TV monitors displaying interviews with Hendrix. Overhead, a number of guitars hung from the ceiling. And as I entered the room, it began to fill with - what else:
Purple Haze!
My next destination was the Parthenon (w) :
No, not the one in Athens, but a replica originally built for the 1897 Centennial Exposition. It now houses an art museum. I took Lyft to get there - I considered taking a scooter, but it was too hot and too far away.
The first floor of the museum housed two exhibits. One was called InstrumentHead, a collections of photographs by Michael Weintrob. These were photographs of musicians, each with their instrument where their head should be. For some reason, I found this rather creepy, and after looking at a few pictures, I beat a hasty retreat. If you really want to know, here's a link to his website.
The other exhibit was a collection of paintings by American artists. They were donated to the museum in 1927 by an anonymous donor, who was later revealed to be James M. Cowan, a wealthy insurance executive and art collector. The paintings were mostly landscapes and seascapes, with a few still lifes and a couple of portraits.
But the main attraction was up on the second floor. The original Parthenon in Athens was a temple to Athena, goddess of wisdom and warfare, and patron of Athens. The temple housed a gigantic statue of the goddess (w), and although the original statue has been lost, several copies still exist - including this one in Nashville:
Notice the size of the people on the right side of the picture, compared to the size of the statue. The picture doesn't really capture its immensity. The rest of the room is similarly immense:
Temple doors
Temple columns
Around the base of the statue were plaques describing various aspects of the figure. For example, here's a closeup of Athena's shield, with the face of Medusa in the center:
Going around on the other side, you can see the serpent behind the shield:
Her helmet is adorned with gargoyles - look closely, they're there:
In her right hand, she holds Nike, the goddess of victory (and athletic shoes):
In the picture of the Parthenon, above, you may have noticed the carvings along top of the building, on what's called the pediment:
There's another pediment on the other end of the building, although this one's not as well lit, because I was shooting into the sun:
At the back of the temple, there's an exhibit describing the pediments and their carvings. Many of the figures on the pediments of the original temple have been lost. Apparently, the figures on the Nashville copy are based on educated guesses of what the missing figures depicted. The exhibit included replicas of what's left of the original figures:
I took Lyft back to downtown, and found myself on Broadway. Broadway in downtown Nashville is much like Beale Street in Memphis - it's lined with bars, clubs and honky tonks, all with windows wide open and music spilling out into the street. I went into a place with the mellifluous name of Kid Rock's Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N' Roll Steakhouse, where I had a drink and listened to a band play for a while:
I then stopped in at the Goo Goo store, home of the famous Goo Goo Cluster. No, it's not what you're thinking, whatever you're thinking. It's a candy bar:
Hard to find in California, but all over the place in Nashville, where it was invented. I bought some for me and Terry and Ashley, and some more to take home for friends. I also visited another candy store across the street, where I bought some more fudge and some pralines. Like I said before - we were on vacation.
By now it was getting late in the afternoon, so I reclaimed my rental car, and drove to meet Terry and Ashley, who were visiting with Jeannie and her husband. We all had dinner together, from Captain D's, a local seafood fast food chain. And then I went out on my own again, for the first of two nights at The Grand Ole Opry (w).
(Terry told me later that twice that day, she had encountered Muslim Lyft drivers who didn't want to take her dog, and made her ride in the back seat, instead of the front, as she prefers. She was not happy. Ashley was mad.)
The Opry isn't a place, it's an event. A country music concert broadcast on the radio every week since 1925. Just about every famous name in country music has played there, from Hank Williams to Johnny Cash to Garth Brooks. You might say that the Opry is to country music what Sun Records was to rock and roll.
The shows used to take place at the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, but in 1974, they moved to the brand new Opry House on the east side of town, right next to the Opry Mills Mall and the Opryland Hotel. The Ryman went into decline and came close to being torn down, but it was renovated and now serves as an alternative concert venue for the Opry organization, where they stage concerts under the name Opry Country Classics, which are also broadcast on the radio.
This presented me with a dilemma. I wanted to go to the "real" Grand Ole Opry, at the Opry House. But I also wanted to go to the historic Ryman Auditorium. But that would mean buying two tickets, and leaving Terry alone for two nights. But when I told Terry my dilemma, she said, "Why don't you just go both nights?" So I quickly bought two tickets before she could change her mind.
So here I am at the Opry House:
No, I'm not in either picture, but that's my shadow at the bottom of the first picture - the sun was behind me.
At the Opry, instead of having a headliner and one or two opening acts, they have several different acts, and each act just does three songs - kind of like the open mike shows I do here in L.A. And since it's a radio broadcast, there are of course commercials and announcements between acts.
I tried to take pictures of the various performers, but since I was sitting in the cheap seats in the balcony, the pictures aren't very good. But they're all I've got, so here goes. In order of performance:
Connie Smith
Maggie Rose
The Del McCoury Band (including Del, two sons and a grandson)
Marcus King (first time on the Opry stage)
Sister Hazel (a band, not a person - they're all men)
Ashley McBryde
Scotty McCreery
There was also a comedian, Jeff Allen, in between Sister Hazel and Ashley McBryde, but I didn't get a picture of him.
In those pictures, notice the circle of lighter color wood where the performers stand. That's a section of the stage from the Ryman Auditorium. When the Opry moved from the Ryman to the Opry House, they brought a little piece of history with them.
Here are maps of the day's wanderings:
