I bivouacked in Nashville for a week or so once, back in the day. It was a pleasant waystation. I was traipsing over the entire map from the top right corner pocket, and kept going until I got to the beach on the wrong side of the ocean. I wandered into Ernie Tubb’s and Gruhn’s and Irma’s Dusty Roads and any other damn place with neon bent into a beer sign, too.
Someone offered tickets to the Grand Ole Opry. Turned them down flat. It had moved to the suburbs. The music itself had long since moved to the suburbs of country and western, so the new auditorium couldn’t harm it more. We walked up the hill from the big strip, and the door to the Ryman Auditorium was unlocked, and we went in and sat in that church and worshiped the dead saints in silence instead.
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Got to attend the Opry at the Ryman around 12 years of age, so….’72 or thereabouts. In August. In the balcony. In a venue with no A/C. Cooled yourself with a $0.25 funeral home fan. Pretty neat all in all, and our youth group had the run of downtown un-chaperoned. Returned 50 years later to see Blackberry Smoke, also very cool.
Patsy Cline – one of my all-time favorites.
Happy New Year, Sipp!
Country musician Bill Anderson wrote a book: “I Hope You’re Living As High On The Hog As The Pig You Turned Out To Be,” a collection of various incidents over his career up to 1993.
He is a good writer, natch!
There are numerous names of that era that are missing, but those included are fun enough.
Patsy Cline is in there; notably for her on-stage announcement to the audience that they were NOT going to perform, unless they got paid for the previous shows…!
One of the last vignettes in the book is Roy Acuff’s last performance at the Opry— not a dry eye in the house! Good stuff.
Some songs about Nashville.
Austin Lounge Lizards: The Car Hank Died In
Kinky Friedman: Sold American
Kinky Friedman: Nashville Casualty and Life
Great choices. A lighthearted look at those Nashville Cats.
Love Patsy–she didn’t need NOW. But just think of what she could have done 10 years later.
Here is one that we really enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-c66SJPuUI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LWduP2F7r8
However, January 1, 1953 we lost this great man who was booted out of the Grand Ol Opry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjCoKslQOEs
So many greats you were lucky to have that quiet time there.