We love Nashville!!! We have had a music filled day. This morning we walked down a few blocks to the area known as Downtown. We wanted to get the hop on hop off trolley that left at 10am from the Hard Rock Cafe. Unfortunately the 10am trolley was full so we booked onto the 11am walking tour followed by the trolley at 1pm.
The main street in downtown is called Broadway. We had an hour to fill in so we walked a few blocks up Broadway. It was full of souvenir shops, boot shops & honky tonks. Some were open but a lot had signs saying they didn't open until 11am. We filled in the hour & then met the guide & rest of the group at the Hard Rock. The site of the Hard Rock shop is where Nashville's first saloon stood. The ground floor was saloon, the second a gambling den & the third was a brothel. It was called the Silver Dollar Saloon & the floor was inlaid with silver dollars. Part of this still exists today.
We walked past a number of other buildings that had great stories such as the drug store that had a hotel on top. Guests had to sign a waiver stating that if the hotel got full, they would have to share their bed with a stranger.
So many of the big names of country music got their start either busking on the street or playing some of the small honky tonks.
In May 2010, there was a major flood in Nashville. The Cumberland river is very close to 1st Ave & the water came up to just under the first traffic light. All the places were flooded & some took up to 10mths to reopen.
Before the Opry started last night, we were shown a short film introduction that showed how it also flooded. The stage was under 4ft of water. It reopened in Sept 2010.
The walking tour continued into 4th to the Ryman Auditorium, the holy grail for country music artists.
Thomas Ryman was a local riverboat captain & businessman who made the majority of his money from drinking & gambling establishments.
A traveling evangelist named Sam Jones came to town & was conducting revival meetings from a tent. He was in town for some time & Thomas Ryman started to see a decline in his profits as people were converted & stayed away from his gambling dens. He decided to go to the tent one night with some friends to heckle Sam Jones. But, he ended up being converted that night. He wanted to build a permanent place that Sam Jones could preach from rather than the tent. Seven years later the Union Gospel Tabernacle was completed. Ryman had built it with curved walls for the best possible acoustics. He wanted everyone to be able to hear the preacher no matter where they were seated. it is said that it has the 2nd best acoustics in the world, just behind the Mormon Tabernacle.
When Thomas Ryman died in 1904, Sam Jones conducted the funeral service here & at the end, announced the name would change from the Union Gospel Tabernacle to the Ryman Auditorium in honor of the man who built it.
From 1904 - 1943, the Ryman was used for ballets, operas, musicals, religious revivals & political debates etc. From 1943 - 1974 it was used by The Grand Ole Opry. During this time, the Ryman was nicknamed the Mother Church of Country Music. Elvis, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Minnie Pearl were just some of the big names to have graced the stage at the Ryman.
When the radio show moved to the Opry House, the Ryman sat empty for 19yrs. It was taken over by the homeless, pigeons & bats.
It was eventually bought by the Gaylord Corporation who undertook an extensive $8.5mil renovation.
It is now used again as a concert venue for all genres of music/entertainment.
We were able to go backstage and see some of the dressing rooms which have been kept in the 70s style. The advertising posters for the Ryman & Opry are printed by a downtown firm called Hatch Show Print. They have been printing the show posters for years. There are so many of them hanging around in the Ryman, all of them autographed by the musician-they would be worth a small fortune. The posters are letterpress block print with the blocks often hand carved from wood. They are very distinctive.
There were cabinets with artist memorabilia-outfits, boots, photos etc. it was very interesting. At the end we were able to have photos taken at the front of the stage with the Grand Ole Opry backdrop.
We left the Ryman with just enough time to get back to 2nd St & board the trolley. The driver was very knowledgeable & gave us lots of information about the sites we were passing. The Bi-Centennial Park was lovely. It was built to commemorate the 200th birthday of Tennessee.There were lots of different parts to the park. One part had 95 bell towers, one to represent each of the counties in Tennessee. On the hour every hour, the bells play a Tennessee themed song. This is then answered by the 96th bell located at the State Capitol which is on a hill overlooking the park. This bell plays the same song back to represent the government listening to the people of the state.
We got off the trolley at Antique Archeology. This is the shop from the tv show American Pickers in which Mike Wolfe travels the country looking for interesting bits & pieces. Inside the store was a giant Porky Pig head, a penny farthing, old leather jackets, a rusted gun, a giant tyre & all kinds of other treasures. Some were for sale, some not. Next to the Pickers was a candy shop who specialize in home made marshmallows. Luckily for us they also made sandwiches so we could have lunch before the trolley arrived just after 2pm to pick us up. Our next stop was The Parthenon. This is a full size replica of the one in Athens & is used as an art museum. The driver stopped for a few minutes to allow us to get off & take some photos of the outside. Next we came to an area known as Music Row. This is home to businesses that have something to do with music. There were recording studios, including the famous Studio B where artists such as Elvis & Barbra Streisand have recorded, publishing houses, record labels & production houses. Many of the streets are named after the music stars. There were also music inspired sculptures around the streets such as one of a man playing a grand piano.
Our next hop off was at the Country Music Hall of Fame. There was a very good exhibition about Patsy Cline & another showcasing a lot of the costumes from Taylor Swift's Speak Now World Tour. My favorite piece in that section was her Swarovski crystal encrusted guitar. Very cool!!!
There were lots of other exhibits chronicling the rise of country music, the introduction of different styles & the stars. There were lots of costumes & instruments & some handwritten lyrics, including Dolly Parton's for Jolene. Elvis's 24carat gold plated Cadillac was in there. There were lots of people we had never heard of but that didn't matter. We enjoyed seeing it all. We walked back down to Broadway, visited a few of the stores & made our way to Mike's Ice Cream shop. By now there was live music coming out of every doorway we passed. Mike's is a Nashville institution & had a huge variety of flavours. You can also have any of the ice cream flavours as a milkshake.
There were quite a few horse & carriages around offering rides.
We decided to do some honky tonk hopping. The first one we went to, Honky Tonk Central, has 3 floors each with live music. The band was packing up as we went in & all though another would have set up, we didn't stay. We went across the road to The Stage. A band was playing so we went in. After 2 or 3 songs they finished but said a band called Savannah Jack would be up next. We waited for them to set up. They were a much slicker band than the previous. They had a fiddler who also played guitar & mandolin. We heard them play about 6 songs & decided to find something to eat as it was getting on to 8pm. As we headed for Broadway this morning, we passed an area called Printers Alley. There were several places in there so we headed up there for dinner. That turned out to be a bad decision as they were mostly karaoke bars with pub food. We eventually found a place for dinner but were a bit far from Broadway to go back for more music. I am constantly surprised by how cheap food is. Dinner tonight cost under $23 for the 2 of us & we both had soup & a main course. It was a good thing we didn't go back for more music as we both needed an early night. The thought was there but it is now 11.40pm.
I would definitely come back to Nashville. I can see why it is called Music City.