Just got back from Nashville. I was there for the Music City Bowl, Coach Nehlen’s last game. Very interesting place. 4% unemployment. Diverse economy …. publishing (75% of all Gideon Bibles are printed there, health care and, of course, entertainment). No income tax. A 9% sales tax. Many religions are headquartered there. Vanderbilt University (tuition $50,000 per year) is in downtown Nashville.
I visited the Country Music Hall of Fame twice. It seems after World War II what had been “country music” noticed that singing cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers were popular. There was also a negative connotation to country music, namely, the hillbilly perception. So country stars started wearing cowboy hats and dressing like cowboys to “borrow” the respectibility of the great America hero from post-war Hollywood, namely the cowboy. Thus was born country western music.
I stood in RCA Studio B where Elvis recorded over 200 of his songs. An amazing place. I also visited The Hermitage where President/General Andrew Jackson (founder of the Democratic Party) lived. Also went to the Legends on Second Avenue. This bar is covered with record album covers going back well into the fifties. Amazing.
Stayed at Opryland which is a easy place to get lost in. The biosphere, however, is a sight to see.
We went to the Grand Ole Opry. Little Jimmy Dickens (West Virginian), Charlie Daniels, Bill Anderson, Trace Atkins and others performed. Saw the Ryman as well, the original home of the GOO. Hank Williams is all over that town. He died (or was determined to be dead) in Oak Hill, West Virginia at the gas station just across from Herbert Jones’ Lundale Farm. My father was his West Virginia executor.
Nice vacation.