(MAY 1999)
Back already for 10 days, but the card you almost got from our fortnight's sojourn might have read... Staying on a hilltop farm 40 miles south of Nashville, surrounded by greenery - trees, more trees, and fields - coasting the freeways in a 4x4 Dodge Durango, checking out the Jack Daniels distillery, the Great Smoky Mountains, communing with the great American purchasing god in the malls, and investigating the music scene...
Nothing musical planned when we arrived, and consternation as first checks of listings showed that we'd just missed a David Grisman and Doc Watson show, and Neil Young solo - albeit on the same night - and that other big name events were scheduled after our departure. Poking around Nashville Broadway suggested that nothing was shaking but second-rate country slurp in the bars - and the occasional freak show, like a 10 year old Dolly Parton from.... London. (To be fair she did have an amazing voice for a 10 year old, but it wasn't quite what we were hoping to hear.) Help! Does this mean a visit to the Grand Ole Opry?
Well it did, and mighty fine it was too. Many an American musical education is attributed to families tuning into the Grand Ole Opry radio show that's been playing across the land every weekend for over 70 years. The Opry theatre's been moved out of town to a zone that includes the Opry Hotel, Dollywood and other sights we managed to avoid. The radio show formula is a series of five half-hour sections, in which there is a performing host (a member of the Opry) and another three acts which perform one or two (very occasionally three) songs. It's live and unrehearsed, and the set changes are slick walk on, plug in, play, plug out, walk off. Stage hands move mics, reposition monitors etc; the drums are in a perspex cage to inhibit leakage; there's a singing quartet that will add instantaneous, perfect four-part harmony to any song as required, while a band that's a bit light on any instrument can be fleshed out by a posse of session musicians who sit behind a bar, stage-rear, ready to throw in acoustic guitar rhythm, electric fill-ins, a hint of dobro or pedal steel, a violin solo etc.
All of this is no guarantee of musical quality, but when the second act of the first half hour has Earl Scruggs sitting in as surprise guest, supporting Marty Stuart who's no mean singer, your opening cynicism quickly loses its edge. Only two songs, but it was fine stuff. And you learn fast to laugh or ignore the man, stage right behind a lectern, failing to buy your imagination (with truly perfect radio advertiser's vocal chords) with some useless information every 15 minutes about the sponsor's fine products. The stage backdrop for Stuart and Scruggs even showed a variety of Greasy Spoon burger 'n fries photos in support of Cracker Barrel.
And so the evening rolled on, with a majority of really enjoyable music far outweighing the inevitable slop. Special mention for Jean Shepard, Bobby Bare, The Whites (wonderful female harmonies), Riders in the Sky (off beat trio doing some great re-arrangements), the Del McCoury Band (bluegrass - see later) and Lee Ann Womack, a New Country singer with electric band. Womack's current single, I'll Think of a Reason Later, was our fave country radio station listen in the Durango, mainly for its catchy chorus lyric that gets a Randy Newman-esque perspective on jealousy
It may be my family's redneck nature
Rubbin' off, bringin' out unlady like behaviour
It sure ain't Christian to judge a stranger
But I don't like her
She may be an angel who spends all winter
Bringin' the homeless blankets and dinner
A regular Nobel Peace Prize winner
But I really hate her,
I'll think of a reason later.
So, we were pretty chuffed we'd chanced the Opry and come out on top. We tempted the devil again the following weekend, thinking to catch the early show then hear some bluegrass later, but it was lamentable - the whole evening being dominated by 1950s hangovers in nudies, rhinestones and cowboy hats singing that peerless unctious drivel.
Our next event was a benefit at Joe's Diner (really!), in the suburbs, featuring Rodney Crowell. Long a Crowell fan - more rock-country than the other way round - it was great to hear him in a small venue, supported by excellent musicians from his current band and the Nashville sessions league. They were having fun. Crowell's repertoire included I Ain't Living Long Like This, Stars on the Water, and two Dylan pieces - Love Minus Zero/No Limit and Like A Rolling Stone. Always a pleasure to hear Dylan interpretations well sung. And sitting in here and there, and singing one solo song, was Steve Earle. Earle has just been a name to me, never heard his stuff before, and I was surprised to see him written up somewhere as featuring in the the top twelve greatest country artists of all time, for redefining the style. He told us that he's about to embark on a European tour with the Del McCoury Band (the tour takes in the UK and Sweden but not France), and they've just issued an album (The Mountain) which is Earle's tribute to Bill Monroe - and very fine it is too.
Which brings me to bluegrass. Last Train to San Fernando (Jimmy Duncan and the Bluegrass Boys) was possibly the first 78rpm my parents bought me circa 1959, but I've only ever once or twice seen a bluegrass band play live. Apart from Del McCoury at the Opry, we caught The Sidemen and '1946' at the Station Inn, which is THE bluegrass dive in Nashville. Not only do all these guys sing and play well, they form of a musical community: thus Rob McCoury (banjo) plays in his old man's band and with the Sidemen; Gene Wooton (dobro) and a mandolin man play with both the Sidemen and 1946, etc. The singer in 1946, who hails from Massachusetts (!), truly had the voice of Bill Monroe. If you know Monroe’s voice, you know it’s unique. I've even wondered if he had his microphones cooked to give his voice that hard strangulated stuck-in-the-gizzard tenor sound; and at first I wondered the same listening to 1946.
And what's so cool about these bands is their management of acoustics. At the Opry, playing Nashville Cats (which is on their new album The Family), the five-man Del McCoury band played around just one microphone, picking up all the instruments and voices. Singers, soloists move in towards the mic to do their thing. At the Station Inn, the Sidemen and 1946 each had their own instrument mics, but violin, dobro, mandolin and banjo play off-mic unless soloing. (Less true of the banjo and particularly the excellent Rob McCoury whose playing and mastery of acoustic dynamics was a particular joy.) All the singing is done around one mic so as to hear and capture the full harmonies. So, keep an eye out for these guys. If you like bluegrass, try to get to see an Earle/McCoury show; and the albums are good too.
The other big scene we got involved with was a songwriters’ evening at the Bluebird Café - four people on stage singing and playing songs they had composed, solo acoustic. Songwriting in Nashville is an industry in itself and, as this evening proved, hugely sophisticated. Whether you love, hate or laugh at the country music idiom, the ‘sincerity’, the musical structures and formatting etc. you couldn’t fail to be impressed by the craft that goes into it. Maybe we were lucky to fall upon an evening with people with professional track records, but a lot of the stuff was really good. The biggest cringe was a song about Jesus who had his ‘arms wide open’ in love for fellow humanity, but who died on the cross with - you guessed - his arms wide open (Austin Cunningham). Hank Wangford would be proud! Beth (?) (who had to have her guitar tuned for her, and had very limited technique, as well as an amazing vocal style that involved placing her tongue on her motionless lips and so apparently singing, very beautifully, from the throat) played some extraordinary and very moving songs. An Australian, Keith Urban’s contributions included some great guitar-work (Louis is now a big fan) and his One Chord Song - are you getting bored, one chord etc - was better than it sounds; while my favourite was Harley Allen who had some great twists on drinking and romance themes
Now I'm going to sue the city about that policeman
Last night as I left the bar he stepped right on my hand
He said 'Are you drunk or blind?'
I said 'Let me think'
And that's another good reason not to drink
That's another good reason not to drink
When I'm sober I'm almost a saint
If I keep goin' on like this I'll end up like ole Hank
That's another good reason not to drink
(Baby let me in, I'm freezin')
Of course, it ain’t just the words. Maybe what struck most was the shared openness to songwriting and a belief that it is a task best worked in teams. The music biz behind it is probably hell; but the artistic endeavour is smart.
The other striking thing for the visiting European was the virtual absence of blacks in Central and Eastern Tennessee. We didn't make it to Memphis - Beale Street, Stax etc are all razed to the ground - but following our Louisiana and Mississippi excursion last year, the whiteness of Nashville was striking; and the situation of Memphis as a melting pot of the cultures is, geographically, more easy to understand.
The wheels turned round and the letters read
You better head back to Tennessee, Jed
Y'all have a good day now,
Bill