Just a little bit country is a country girl at heart, so what better places to wear a cowboy hat (briefly), than Nashville and Memphis.
Bernadette Courtney
Music. I was raised on it – Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris. Country music, the proper stuff. So where better to take a music pilgrimage than a bucket list trip to Nashville and Memphis on a Southern Grace Luxury Gold Insight’s Vacations Tour. This is the posh tour – five-star hotels, luxury coach, premium tour directors and access to the best one-off customised music experiences, without any of the queues.
I’d imagined big skyscrapers, vast cities with music pounding from every building, Southern fried chicken, everyone in Stetsons and cowboy boots, Elvis lookalikes and Keith Urban walking down the street. Wrong. The streets, apart from Nashville’s Honky Tour Highway, were devoid of any cowgirl. Apparently cowboy hats are only worn by daft tourists and music stars – but then only on stage. Oops, off with the hat then.
Nashville, with its cranes nudging out of the skyline of a few tall buildings, was the big brother with a ‘‘look at me, we are going someplace’’ attitude. Some glitzy hotels, funky cafes and restaurants surround the many music museums and studios, and the Honky Tonks are jumping – a bit like Courtenay Place in Wellington on a Saturday night on steroids. Say no more.
There was no sign of Kiwi Keith Urban – he lives like all of the other country stars, holed up in an upmarket suburb out of Nashville. Taylor Swift, forget it.
Memphis, a bit shabby on the outside and pretty small – about four blocks downtown, was a music jewel. Deserted streets – Americans drive everywhere – but it has a very welcoming vibe. I loved its small-town charm.
Music… ah, there was plenty of that served up like the enormous portions of fried chicken that adorned our plates and were always left half-eaten. Big portions, some big people. Just saying.
With large distances to cover and a packed itinerary, the coach made sense and was livened by great commentary and historical background, sliced with hilarious stories from Insight’s Ann Harness, a well-dressed, sassy music-loving guide who channelled ‘‘our country’’ blaring out blues and country hits on the bus, passing around sugary sweet treats.
On this tour you definitely get what you pay for – access to custom tours – not many people have been shown around Graceland by Elvis Presley’s best mate, and had dinner in his garage I bet, or recorded a single in the studio Elvis sang in, but it’s all there.
If you love music, it’s a tour for you. If you are not a music fan give it a go. There’s a cowboy hat to fit everyone.
Here’s a flick through a country tour playlist.
Track One: The historic RCA Studio B recording studio
Yes, the one that made Elvis Presley famous, and home to 45,000 recorded songs. A big piece of wall art showing Hank Williams, the father of country music, adorns a wall facing the small nondescript studio. Apart from a blue plaque signalling the donation of the building to the Country Music Foundation, there’s nothing until you get inside to signal its history as a hitmaking factory.
Step into the original lobby and you are blown away by four walls of memorabilia, photos, album covers, gold hits – there’s Dolly Parton’s bouffant and beaming smile, a babyfaced Elvis, plus copies of all of the singles he recorded over a 13-year period, and a clean-cut Waylon Jennings.
You are led through the door to the studio where Elvis recorded, the piano he sat at, the microphone he sung into – everything in its original state. Shabby, old-school, but magical.
RCA paid US$35,000 to Sun Records to seal a new record deal for Elvis, a staggering amount of money in 1955, and four months later had a hit on its hands – Heartbreak Hotel, which sold a million copies. Tour guide Greg darkens the studio and we listen to the strains of Are You Lonesome Tonight, recorded by Elvis at 4am with the lights turned off. I’m a softie but it was an emotional experience to hear that track and sit where Elvis recorded. It is lump-in-the-throat stuff. If you listen to the track carefully you’ll hear Elvis hit his head on the microphone, honest.Well, that’s what the tour guide said. Our tour group had a go at recording a live version of I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You with takeaway CD to bore our family, friends and workmates with for years to come. A tidy job for a choir of 26, timid voices refined in the sound studio, but certainly not destined for the Billboard charts. Then it’s a quick sit at that piano, channelling Elvis, for another photo shoot.
Critics choice: ‘‘An intimate recording experience.’’ Track Two: Ryman Auditorium, home to the Grand Ole Opry
No visit to Nashville is complete without a look inside the Ryman, and if you are lucky enough, a night at the Ole Opry itself.
Opened in 1892, the Ryman is a Our tour group had a go at recording a live version of to bore our family, friends and workmates with. A tidy job for a choir of 26, timid voices refined in the sound studio, but certainly not destined for the Billboard charts.
I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You
2362-seat venue, which has boasted just about every big name singer and band perform there. Originally built by Thomas G Ryman as a tabernacle, it has some of the best acoustics in the world and sure is pretty to look at with its carved circular seating wrapping around the stage. There’s no bad seat in the house. The Opry radio show moved to another venue in 1974 but after an extensive renovation 20 years later it moved back, apart from summer when it heads back to its alternative venue.
To stand in the theatre and pose for another photo on the famous stage – there’s a professional photographer ready to snap you with guitar and snap some money out of your wallet for the privilege – was pretty cool (mine’s on the kitchen bench). But to return that Saturday night to hear the live 650 AM WSM radio show broadcast was an experience. It’s a mix of schmaltz, well it was close to Christmas, and pure country. There were some old timers like regular Connie Smith interspersed with advertising breaks galore – product themes ran from toilet products to hunting – oh, to keep a straight face. The night was rounded