MUSIC MUSTS
Live music, mainly country-oriented but not exclusively, plays 24/7 in Nashville. The Lower Broadway honky tonks are in the centre of the touristy downtown area and are an essential stop. This is where the music hopefuls play for tips; the standards are largely outstanding.
Nearby is the mother church of country, the Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry until 1974. It still hosts Opry events several times a week as well as welcoming everyone from blues group the Tedeschi Trucks Band to Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. A little further out of the centre is the legendary Bluebird Café, where songwriters play in the round.
If you’re here on a Monday night, visit 3rd and Lindsley, where the Time Jumpers play. A collective of Nashville’s top veteran session players, they include country star Vince Gill (infrequently now as he tours with the Eagles) and the brilliant steel guitar virtuoso Paul Franklin. This is pure Western swing, or cowboy jazz as the band members describe it; genteel, lilting, melodic.
Then there are the excellent museums. As well as the Country Music Hall of Fame, there are the Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline museums side-by-side, and RCA Studio B, where Elvis, the Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison recorded.
Don’t miss the city’s two great music shops, Grimey’s and Third Man Records. The latter, owned by Detroit migrant and music superstar Jack White, is now much more than a record store, more a sprawling creative Aladdin’s Cave that features, among other things, the world’s only live music venue with direct-to-acetate recording capabilities.