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| Oh Music City, I'll miss your honky tonks and non-ironic cowboy hats. |
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| I'm sure the "them" at the beginning of the second line should be "the" but it somehow reads more like how people actually talk in Nashville. |
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| The woman sang "Sweet Home Alabama" (Lynyrd Skynyrd) and without stopping, went into "All Summer Long" (Kid Rock), which samples and borrows whole chunks of "Sweet Home Alabama," (if you didn't know) and then, most awesomely and curiously, did the theme to "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" on top of the groove from "Sweet Home Alabama" before returning to "Sweet Home Alabama." Genius, in my opinion. |
I like country music, but seriously, by some time Wednesday, I was countried out and was looking for something more rhythmic. This guy and his band hit the spot tonight:
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| Legends Corner, on Broadway and 5th, Nashville. Things in the audience get really sloppy really early on a Friday, it seems. |
Again, I really should research this guy's name, along with his amazing band. They freaked my face off. Shortly after I walked in, he and his band performed, (with some songs running into each other):
-No Diggity (Blackstreet)
-The Real Slim Shady (Eminem)
-(You Gotta) Fight for your Right (to Party) (The Beastie Boys)
-It's Tricky (Run DMC)
-Baby Got Back (Sir Mix-A-Lot)
That's my hip hop era!
He then did a country song that I didn't recognize (something about honky tonks), pulled up Hank Williams Jr's bass player who was in the crowd, to perform two Hank Jr songs, which I did not know but realized one must be called "Family Tradition." (I'm a Hank Sr fan, know nothing about Hank Jr). He then said he is mostly a country singer but likes all genres and likes to do a bit of everything, and then performed "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Pour Some Sugar on Me."
I will miss Nashville's bands and the fans in the honky tonks who were just as excited by Patsy Cline, Hank Jr, Miranda Lambert and hip hop and rock--and knew all the lyrics to everything.
Other than music
I had some time today, so went back to the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge to get skyline shots at a better angle. You might not see the difference, but the angle of the Batman Building wasn't optimal in the other photos. I like this angle better, if not the actual shots, but I didn't get night shots. It was cloudy the whole day, and really warm, about 20 degrees celsius by the afternoon.
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| A panoramic shot. My one regret with this photo, which I didn't notice until later, is that Batman's "ears" aren't completely within the frame. |
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| The more traditional view. Cloudy the whole day. |
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| Same angle, but with part of the bridge visible. |
What I ate
Lunch at Puckett's:
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| Meat and three: catfish, smashed sweet potatoes, sweet potato fries, turnip greens and some corn thing poking behind the turnip greens. |
A Nashville thing is "meat and three" which is a meat with three side dishes. You can't see it from this angle but the woman beside me had to tell me how to eat that pancake thing. You treat it like bread. Btw, she had a beautiful accent. She seemed to be in her 80s and had what locals might call a "hillbilly" accent. Our regionalisms in speech, I think I read somewhere, are starting to disappear because we all watch the same TV shows, etc. I digress, though... I was told that the catfish would be "fried." I expected pan-fried. I think "fried" down here means deep fried unless otherwise noted.
I also ate this for dessert at lunch:
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| That's a fried brownie sundae, friend. |
This fried brownie sundae is brownie batter, mixed with cookie dough, breaded and deep fried. Sweetened pecans added, and ice cream, of course. The crunch of the breading was great; it was really sweet. Really good, but won't be doing that again for awhile.... When I ordered it, the waiter proclaimed, "All right!" (pronounced "raht."). That made happier than it should.
This was dinner at Rippy's, on Broadway near the honky tonks:
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| Full slab of ribs with coleslaw and turnip greens. Barbecue dinner, with live music in the room. Not much could make it better. (Sorry for the poor focus). |
Got some barbecue to hold me over until my return to the American South, whenever that may be....
Nashville is small, but a really good city. I'm sad to be leaving. Not just the music and the food, but really interesting attractions not related to music. The Parthenon, which you saw, and the Bicentennial Mall, which I didn't describe, is also pretty great.
Off to the airport early tomorrow....
