|
| |
Nashville - Part 4
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
Searching for a unique American Cultural identity? Our writer finds it within the city limits of Nashville.
Day 4
On our last day we visited two of country music's biggest sites... the Country Music Hall of Fame followed by the Ryman Auditorium.
The Country Music Hall of Fame is impressive from the moment you get about 2 blocks away. The entire building looks like a piano knocked on its side with an old-fashioned radio antenna coming out of it. Of course it leaves you wondering why a massive three story piano was knocked on its side in the middle of downtown Nashville, but you stop thinking about that as you ponder the idea of why a radio antenna was jabbed in on the left of it.
Anyway, by the time you're done with thinking about this you're in the museum, which is as massive inside as it is on the outside. Although that's probably pretty redundant by now it's something that cannot be overlooked... the place is massive.
| | |
Country Music Hall of Fame | |
Inside you find exhibits spanning the range of country music including people who you might not have instantly associated with country music. We saw Elvis's diamond and gold dusted Cadillac.
The amount of work put into the Country Music Hall of Fame is obvious with the vastness of its exhibits. In fact they have so much memorabilia that they have a glass walled archive center where you can see them moving around everything from old records to original guitars. A state of the art theater, mixed with interactive exhibits, etc... the whole place is state of the art... which struck me as funny that the museum is probably more state of the art than the equipment some of these early musical artists have ever used.
From there we went to the Ryman Auditorium which held the original Grand Ole' Opry. The story of this building starts before the Grand Ole' Opry was there, in 1885 with Captain Tom Ryman. It seems Captain Tom was just your every day captain living in Nashville when he heard a sermon by southern evangelist Sam P. Jones and was instantly converted so he decided to build a tabernacle for Sam P. Jones to preach.
From that time until the early 1900's it was a hall for preaching until people started to perform everything from music to operas in the building. In 1943, the Grand Ole' Opry started broadcasting there until 1974 when it was moved to its current location in Opryland. The building was doomed for destruction but then Gaylord Entertainment came to the rescue and now it is in constant use as a concert hall with artists in and outside of the world of country music.
Well that was Nashville... and back to my original Americana theme, yes, I think we hit most of it. There is still more to America than we've covered, but the basic stereotypes of what's uniquely American can be found here in Nashville; clowns to art museums, country music to the Civil War, botanical gardens to Native Americans... even good barbecue food and diminutive country singers. Does it have everything that makes up America? Not 100%, but it's probably the closest you're ever going to get to having an American culture right in your pocket. As you can probably tell by reading this it quickly became one of our favorite cities.
Read part 1 | Read part 2 | Read part 3
|
|
|
|
|
|
