I had never been to Nashville before, but it doesn’t take long before I see why this middle Tennessee city is considered the country music capital of the world.
Downtown honky-tonks pump out live music from 10 a.m. until the wee hours, and cowboy culture is everywhere, from neon lights highlighting guitars and lassos to the cowboy attire many folks wear while strolling Lower Broadway.
This four-block stretch, nicknamed “Honky Tonk Highway,” is where country music royalty reign and where up-and-coming country musicians hope to be discovered.
The Wednesday night I visit Nashville’s entertainment district, The Cowpokes, a two-step dance band, are playing Robert’s Western World.
The band’s name alone promises I’ll hear some classic country songs from the 1940s to the 1960s, so I join the queue and wait for a rock band to finish before the Cowpokes take the stage.
The five band members, wearing matching cowboy shirts and red bandanas, are their own roadies and spend time rearranging microphones and tuning instruments before the twangy country music begins.
The talented musicians, with a pedal steel guitar, drums, fiddle and more guitars, somehow have enough room on the bar’s small stage, while a handful of dedicated country fans do a few twirls on what appears to be an even smaller dance floor.
As the Cowpokes’ music blares out onto Broadway, more music lovers squeeze into the narrow bar, with its neon beer signs, autographed photos of country stars and shelves decorated with cowboy boots. (The bar first opened as a boot and clothing store).
Despite the crammed quarters, everyone seems happy drinking beer and listening to music, no cover charge required.
This popular honky-tonk is around the corner from the famous Ryman Auditorium, the former home of the Grand Ole Opry. Between 1943 and 1974, the country music faithful gathered to sit on its wooden pews, in what was once the Union Gospel Tabernacle, to hear their favourite country stars as the world’s most famous country radio station, WSM Radio, broadcast the live performances across the nation.
Today, the Grand Ole Opry has a new location with a much larger stage about a 20-minute drive from the Ryman. The Opry will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2025 — half of that at its new location — and remains the biggest stage for country acts.
The Saturday I visited the “new” 4,400-seat Grand Ole Opry, I enjoyed a “Country Classics” concert, emceed by Larry Gatlin, with performances by the Gatlin Brothers, Dailey & Vincent, Sara Evans, William Michael Morgan and Mark Wills. And in keeping with the past, the concert was broadcast by Nashville’s WSM Radio.
The Ryman also hosts live concerts, with about 200 shows on its yearly calendar. But if the Ryman doesn’t have a concert happening during your Nashville visit, you can still get inside “The Mother Church of Country Music” for a backstage tour and see the dressing rooms where famous country legends prepared before stepping out on stage.
The list of performers who played at the Ryman, now a National Historic Landmark, is long and includes singers such as Elvis Presley, Reba McEntire, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Chris Stapleton, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and Leon Bridges, to name just a few.
Within walking distance of the Ryman is the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, an institution aptly called the “Smithsonian of country music” that first opened in 1967 but moved to its current location in 2001.
In 2014, a $100-million expansion doubled its footprint to 350,000 square feet of exhibition galleries, retail and event space in a building easy to spot downtown, since its windows resemble piano keys and its front wall is shaped like a bass clef.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is also home to the Hatch Show Print, a working letterprint shop since 1879, which has a vast collection of vintage type and hand-carved tools that continue to be used today to make hand-made prints.
One of its most popular prints, still available for sale, is an Elvis Presley 1956 concert poster from when he played a Jacksonville, Florida theatre, created by the Hatch Show Print shop back in the day.
You can see more Presley memorabilia at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, most notably his 1960 gold Cadillac, with 24-karat-gold-plated highlights on its exterior and a gold-plated television inside.
But perhaps my favourite Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit, besides Taylor Swift’s “sparkle” guitar covered with Swarovski crystal rhinestones and Kris Kristofferson’s handwritten lyrics for Me and Bobby McGee, was another customized automobile — honky-tonk singer Webb Pierce’s 1962 “Nudie Mobile,” which has a miniature saddle between the front bucket seats, chrome-plated ornamental guns and horses decorating its hood and side panels, and steer horns on the front bumper. (Nudie Mobiles were customized vehicles named for designer Nudie Cohn, known for designing rhinestone-covered outfits worn by the likes of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.)
This outlandish convertible, once owned by one of country music’s flashiest figures, is just one of many objects in the museum’s collection of about 500 musical instruments, more than 1,900 items of stage costumes and personal clothing, and more than 500,000 photographs that help tell the history of country music from the 1920s to the present.
But Nashville is much more than country music.
This is a city brimming not only with musicians but artists, art galleries, great restaurants and historic sites, including an unexpected one in Nashville’s Centennial Park — a full-scale replica of the Parthenon. Long before Nashville was known as “Music City,” it was “the Athens of the South,” when the brick, wood and plaster Parthenon was built for Nashville’s Centennial Exposition in 1897.
Inside Nashville’s Parthenon, which in some ways beats the Athens, Greece, original since it has a roof and is fully intact, is another unexpected art piece — a 12-metre-high (42-foot) statue of the goddess Athena, designed by one of Nashville’s most revered artists, Alan LeQuire.
The 68-year-old Nashville native was just 26 when he was selected to create Nashville’s Athena in 1981, a work that took eight years to complete.
Next year, his career will come full circle when he is the first artist to show 24 new works inside the Parthenon over two floors, in a special exhibit opening in June. The Athena sculpture, which LeQuire describes as a “monument to women,” will also be celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2025.
“There’s this giant goddess in there that is kind of hard to compete with, but my goal as a sculptor from the beginning was to honour real people, primarily women. That’s what I’ve done for most of my career,” he says.
LeQuire has also written a book about his experience working with anthropologists on the Athena sculpture, which will be published in time for the anniversary.
IF YOU GO
Where to stay and eat
• Loews Vanderbilt Hotel, in midtown Nashville across from Vanderbilt University, is just a 10-minute walk from Centennial Park and 1.6 kilometres from Nashville’s entertainment district downtown. With 339 rooms, it’s considered one of Nashville’s first luxury hotels — country stars like Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift have stayed in their over-the-top designer suites, available to rent if you want a taste of the life country legends lead.
• Germantown Inn, a small boutique hotel just north of downtown Nashville, is a great choice for travellers who prefer a quieter neighbourhood — in this case, Nashville’s first suburb, called Germantown, after German immigrants who moved there in the mid-1800s. There are 10 suites in the two-storey Federal-style hotel, built in 1865, each one with vintage and custom furniture. The hotel also has an outdoor courtyard and private rooftop terrace.
• Holston House Nashville is a few short blocks away from the Ryman Auditorium, in the heart of Nashville’s downtown entertainment district. Guests who stay in this art deco style building can enjoy views of the city from the rooftop terrace while lounging by its pool.
• Henrietta Red in Nashville’s Germantown neighbourhood was my favourite restaurant to eat at in the city. It offers seasonal, contemporary cooking and specializes in seafood. After opening in 2017, it was named one of America’s 50 best new restaurants by Bon Appetite magazine and its chef one of the best new chefs by Food & Wine in 2018. Every dish we ate here was incredible, but some of my favourites were the roasted squash, risotto and seared scallops.
Kim Pemberton was hosted by Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp., which did not review or approve this story. Follow her on instagram at kimstravelogue.
