Nashville

After today I have to correct one comment of yesterday. This town is not playing a lot of music - this town IS music - and this does not necessarily mean Country but all different types of music.

The whole day was dedicated to music. 

It started with the Country Music Hall of Fame where I learned about the  history of Country & Bluegrass music. With around 20 USD entrance fee the most expensive museum so far but everyone loves it. Summarized: it started in the 20's of last century where radio had to fill some time and started broadcasting local music which became quickly so popular and started the whole thing. When you see the number of visitors of this museum and also the number of sold records you see the huge success of this music style which is not that much known in our areas (of course some people like Kris Kristofferson everyone knows but the real local stars are mainly unknown to a bigger crowd outside the US). On one wall they showed golden and platin records of country stars. There was among others a CD of Garth Brooks which has been sold 10 Mio times !!!!! I have to get this CD 'The Hits' to find out what is so impressive. On this CD you can find also the original version of the song: If tomorrow never comes :-) one of the best romantic songs you might know.

After the Hall of Fame I made a tour around the so called 'Music road' an area of two streets in uptown where dozens of record studios are located and producing millions of all sorts of music. The best selling studio sells gospel songs and bible CDs ... isn't that strange? The most interesting studio and the main reason for this tour was the visit of the RCA Studio B. Did Chess in Chicago build the basis for the modern music so shows this Studio (which is not only a museum but still working and producing) the 'golden age of POP music'. Elvis for example loved this studio and produced there around 50% of all his songs (e.g. Are you lonesome tonight he produced at 4am in the morning and he insisted on complete darkness in the studio :-)) Other produced songs there, e.g. Everly Brothers: all you have to do is dream / Roy Orbison (who lived around the corner) Only the lonely / Dolly Parton, Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, Connie Francis, Garth Brooks, ... and of course Chet Atkins - wo run the studios for more than 20 years. Chet Atkins, one of the best guitarist of this world, became also a sort of 'star' status in Europe few years ago when he made a duo-CD together with Mark Knopfler!!!

In the afternoon I strolled again around the District and like the evening before in all corners they played live music (at 3 pm!!!!). How enthusiastic people can be, great!

The evening was reserved again for Country! I visited the GRAND OLE OPRY. Did you hear me in the radio?? The Grand Ole Opry is a radio show which is broadcasted for more than 85 (!!!) years - in the meantime world wide (via the net). These two hours show with dozens of stars (I didn't know a single one but the crowd loved most of them) was really entertaining and well produced. Especially the jokes, the spoken advertisements every 10 minutes are really amusing. The whole theater can entertain around 4.000 people and you will not believe it, this shows at least three shows every week and the theater is mostly sold out! Great music for one evening - but I have to admit that on the way back to the hotel I listened to some blues and saw that my real destiny is somewhere else!

All people you see and meet in this town are somehow connected to music. See the guy who sells CDs at Barnes & Noble with whom I discussed about 1 hour about Blues - he additionally plays bass in a blues band (unfortunately this chat cost me a lot of money because at the end I had so many recommendations ...) or take Shirley, the tour guide to the RCA studios who records country songs and plays tomorrow in the Legend Club in Nashvill with her band.

Really impressive this total music dedication! WOW.