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My father and I left Asheville just after 11 in the morning. We got a late start due to the extra time spent loading the car and enjoying a delicious homemade breakfast. We have decided to spend the bulk of our time on the trip west of the Mississippi River, so we wasted no time in getting to Nashville, arriving just after 4pm local time. On the way, we stopped for lunch in Knoxville at a place called Cafe 4. As we sat eating our dessert in the park outside the restaurant, we got our first taste of the Tennessee music scene from a local Bluegrass band that was holding their own. Once we arrived in Nashville, we found our hotel and settled in for a short bit before hitting the streets.
Our first stop was to grab some dinner at the South Street Restaurant, recommended by my good friend and Vanderbilt graduate Alex. We chit-chatted with our waitress Carly about her songwriting career over crabcakes, ribs, and fried pickles. (Aside: if you’ve never had a fried pickle, they are a must at least once.) From talking with Carly, it was clear that many people in Nashville make a living hoping to be the next great singer/songwriter, similar to movie acting in L.A. and stage acting in NYC.
Afterward, we had a chance to see some of these aspiring writers in action at the Bluebird Cafe’s Writer’s Night. Among the acts were Mark Donham and Clint Alphin, who each sang a tune about the current economic state – which seemed to be a theme of the evening. For me it was a first hand account of how this recession is affecting the broader population outside of the Wall Street environment in which I had been immersed until recently. Clint sang a song “Bail Me Out”, which, predictably, complained about the use of tax dollars on saving Wall Street firms, but he, like many, does not seem to get the bigger picture of how $1 spent on Wall Street can mean several dollars injected into the economy.
As we were leaving, we ran into singer/songwriter Nashville Kat who offered her opinion: that the illegal distribution of music was hurting the rise of new songwriting talent because established artists sought high percentage revenue splits to make up for lost income from stolen songs. Not being in the know, I have no immediate opinion on the subject, but consider this before you decide to download the new The Fray album via BitTorrent.
Nashville is all about music, which is why I will return here someday, though my next visit will most certainly coincide with a music festival.
Day 1: Asheville to Nashville
This SlideShowPro photo gallery requires the Flash Player plugin and a web browser with JavaScript enabled.
My father and I left Asheville just after 11 in the morning. We got a late start due to the extra time spent loading the car and enjoying a delicious homemade breakfast. We have decided to spend the bulk of our time on the trip west of the Mississippi River, so we wasted no time in getting to Nashville, arriving just after 4pm local time. On the way, we stopped for lunch in Knoxville at a place called Cafe 4. As we sat eating our dessert in the park outside the restaurant, we got our first taste of the Tennessee music scene from a local Bluegrass band that was holding their own. Once we arrived in Nashville, we found our hotel and settled in for a short bit before hitting the streets.
Our first stop was to grab some dinner at the South Street Restaurant, recommended by my good friend and Vanderbilt graduate Alex. We chit-chatted with our waitress Carly about her songwriting career over crabcakes, ribs, and fried pickles. (Aside: if you’ve never had a fried pickle, they are a must at least once.) From talking with Carly, it was clear that many people in Nashville make a living hoping to be the next great singer/songwriter, similar to movie acting in L.A. and stage acting in NYC.
Afterward, we had a chance to see some of these aspiring writers in action at the Bluebird Cafe’s Writer’s Night. Among the acts were Mark Donham and Clint Alphin, who each sang a tune about the current economic state – which seemed to be a theme of the evening. For me it was a first hand account of how this recession is affecting the broader population outside of the Wall Street environment in which I had been immersed until recently. Clint sang a song “Bail Me Out”, which, predictably, complained about the use of tax dollars on saving Wall Street firms, but he, like many, does not seem to get the bigger picture of how $1 spent on Wall Street can mean several dollars injected into the economy.
As we were leaving, we ran into singer/songwriter Nashville Kat who offered her opinion: that the illegal distribution of music was hurting the rise of new songwriting talent because established artists sought high percentage revenue splits to make up for lost income from stolen songs. Not being in the know, I have no immediate opinion on the subject, but consider this before you decide to download the new The Fray album via BitTorrent.
Nashville is all about music, which is why I will return here someday, though my next visit will most certainly coincide with a music festival.