Advertisement
Published: October 12th 2011
A visit to the South was always high on the list of places we needed to get to in our trip around the USA. The history is interesting, the people are said to be different but most of all the music that comes out of this part of the world is very much to our taste. We wanted very much to get to see and hear some Appalachian mountain music. A bit of bluegrass would be acceptable if we could find some, some good country would be good too and, of course, if halfway reasonable blues is about, then that is where we'll end up. So we needed to get to where the 'South' is. The Mason Dixon line was where it started when I was at school but the internet informed us that the 'other side' of Route 40 is a now a more accepted border.
Wherever the South is it is not New York so we needed to head south. Sarah couldn't stand the pace of travel with the old folks, or perhaps she needed to get back and replenish the bank account, and scuttled off home at the end of last week. As she staggered into the
terminal at JFK with her recently swollen baggage the rain, threatening all week, arrived in spades. To add interest to our trip, my constant abuse of the TomTom had finally caused her to spit the dummy so, rather than run us out of JFK on a nice straightforward freeway, she found a tedious route right through the middle of Manhattan. I will admit that I compounded the issue by refusing to believe that a building we were being directed through was actually the entry to the Manhattan Bridge but, hey, it was raining, there was a lot of traffic, pedestrians sprinting across the street willy-nilly and why would you put a building as a bridge entrance anyway? (Editor's note: the building was actually a colonnade).
Eventually, after driving through some pretty fundamental parts of New Jersey, we reassessed the situation, gave new directions to our equipment and headed for the hills, the Appalachians that is, finally making it as far as Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, that night. Mechanicsburg is a transport hub in the Cumberland Valley in the 'early' Appalachians, named for the mechanics who gathered in the place early in the 19th century to repair Conestoga wagons heading west. It
developed largely because the Cumberland Valley Railroad came through a fair bit later.
A solid day of driving with rain most of the day took us a little over 800 km out of Pennsylvania, through Maryland and West Virginia, rolling to a stop just after we crossed the border into Kentucky. So we are now definitely in the South. The bloke on the desk at the motel confirmed that just by talking to us. Also told us that we had brought the rain with us. He talked of it having actually being hot for the last week. There was none about for us.
The country we drove through was generally pretty special, perhaps in a low-key sort of way. Some reasonable hills early on and a lot more covered with trees than we had expected. The land looks reasonably fertile although it is hard to tell with such a lot of forest and relatively little agriculture. Some small farms carved out of the bush in very nice valleys. Not sure if they all make moonshine but you would bet that some did when it was the thing to do.
Our day on the road was marred a
Visitor
in the Visitor Centre, Nashvillelittle by the activation of a warning light, which we eventually worked out indicated a tyre pressure problem. A stop and check at a service station didn't show any real problem so we figured that the light was just playing up. Disconcerting though. I find those things hard to ignore. The problem was eventually sorted when the navigation team worked out it was being turned on by the MP3 FM transmitter that we had bought in New York.
Before we arrived there we had never heard of the Renfro Valley Country Music Centre. Stuck out in the middle of Kentucky a good drive from most places, it has been going since the 1930's. We stopped in the area because it seemed like a reasonable place to pull up for a day or two and have a look around. It is in striking distance of Lexington and a couple of distilleries. Turned out that Renfro Valley wasn't too bad at all. At the very least an interesting study in a part of the USA that we hadn't yet seen close up and personal.
Crystal Gale was the attraction in the main pavilion but there was a view in the
What to read?
Plenty of choice. Nashville TN camp that it wouldn't be worth walking across the road to see her perform. Her older sister would have been worthwhile. We didn't across the road. Instead we went to the Renfro Barn Dance. This is the original thing that was the beginning of it all. They have a group of musicians, all very good at their job, who sing, play etc. Very smooth and slick. Some of the perfomers have been doing this here for well over 20 years. You could expect that they would be getting good at it. A good show if not absolutely special. We weren't in the oldest percentile in the audience on this occasion but we may very easily have been the only foreigners in the hall.
A highlight was the final song. After a long time travelling through many different countries you do get to the point where you tend not to be too shocked by the practices of other cultures. Interested always, at times intrigued, but rarely genuinely surprised. But in this case we were. It was a salute to the troops. All ex-military were asked to stand. Then the caste of the show, now wearing the appropriate headgear, recited one
after the other the appropriate hymn for each branch of the military. When your branch came up you were asked to stand again. And then we all stood while the band played 'God Bless America'. The audience loved it. On the basis of comments as we left, people were very moved and impressed even though a couple we talked to had seen it all before. I can't really imagine something similar happening in Australia. Some people do get out once a year on Anzac Day and everyone will stand silent for the 2 minutes silence in an RSL but I can't really imagine many being all that keen on such an event. It seems, however, to be very much part of the US culture at the moment and we should really not have been at all surprised.
The weather in central Kentucky had fined right up but Fall had arrived along with some cool temperatures. They were forecasting just a little above freezing. Our decision to buy a little heater was vindicated on the same day but we were pretty snug in our masses of bedding anyway. We had a couple of pretty quiet days with just a visit
to the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame. Very well done and we were surprised by the number of performers in a range of musical genres who have become famous and who were born and bred in Kentucky.
And for Adam – along with any other Louis L'Amour afficionados – we had a bit of a look around Cumberland County, Clinch Mountain and the Cumberland Gap. Great country but, as those of us who have read the words know, the good land is only on the flat. Those side hill farms are poor. Non-existent now from what we could tell. Perhaps they all eventually went west.
Travelling is about setting priorities, at least when you are in countries where there is too much to cover. We would have liked to get to Memphis to pick up on some of the blues tradition there but we had to make a decision between that, involving a pretty long drive, and a relatively short run to Nashville. We will have other opportunities for blues music and Nashville is the country music capital so Nashville it was.
We ran into a woman from Nashville after we left and when she heard we
A decorated barn
Most of the barns we saw in Kentucky had decorations on them had been there she immediately quizzed us about whether we had enjoyed it or not. She was surprised that we had. It is not a wonderful or beautiful place. A big, flat city that doesn't have all that much to recommend it other than a lot of country music coming out of every bar you pass around the centre.
There were two options for accommodation. Out near the Grand Ole Opry or in town. Now we didn't actually know before these options came up in our research that the Grand Ole Opry wasn't in town. So, just in case we aren't the only people who don't pay attention, the Opry House is actually about 20 km away from downtown in a place that is developing into a sort of Opry Land theme park. A very large and very flash convention centre, 4 or 5 flash hotels and a shopping centre with an aquarium are all either developed or under construction. A very substantial complex and surrounded by the inevitable acres of car parks. Out here there is plenty of camping particularly for RV's and this is where a lot of people clearly decide to base themselves. Our research indicated
some of this, although not the extent. For us, downtown sounded better so we found a hotel in easy walking distance of the downtown area. We did go out and have a look at the Opry Land complex, seeing rather more than we bargained for after getting thoroughly lost walking around looking for the actual theatre.
Nashville is, after all, the state capital and has other things to do than look after country music fans, so it was to be expected that it wouldn't all be honky tonks, concert halls and the Country Music Hall of Fame. I will admit that I expected a touch more than was there but there you go. We enjoyed ourselves. The bars along about 4 blocks of Broadway and then back for a couple off Broadway were lively. We whiled away some nice time sipping the local tipple, a beer called Dos Perros – OK but not special – taking in some pretty reasonable country music. There were plenty of options, at least after about 2 in the afternoon and it was a nice way to spend the interludes in our shopping. The overall standard of the music around was pretty good. Even
the buskers on the streets would put a lot of performers in other places to shame.
We didn't buy boots in Chihuahua when we were there and, with great deals all over the place, it looked like this was the place to address this lack in our wardrobes. Being slightly easier to please, or with lower standards, I was sorted pretty smartly. We will be looking further in other places to kit out my lovely wife in a proper manner.
Nashville at night was slightly disappointing although we should have expected it. We were looking forward to a continuation of the same sort of relaxed atmosphere that we enjoyed in the afternoons, perhaps a little more raunchy and possibly event a little sleazy. Well it was that, but it was also the place where the young and squealy of Nashville come out to play. Not that they shouldn't have a place to play, of course, but it is difficult to enjoy music with the young 'uns learning how to cope with alcohol nearby. We looked in on a few places and formed the view that the talent on show was in inverse proportion to the noise utilised to
disseminate the product. Not that much fun and not that comfortable for us. So we found a blues place a little off the beaten track. Mainly R&B stuff and, while there was certainly plenty of noise, they were good musicians and did their job well.
We did visit the Ryman Theatre, where the Grand Ole Opry used to be held, for a concert by Keb Mo and, in fact, stayed a day longer than we had intended to do so. You might well consider that it is not really kosher to go to see a blues artist in the country music capital but Keb Mo is a resident of the city so we figured that it would be OK. He turned in an excellent show. It started out relatively quietly but by the end of the 2 hours he and his band spent on stage, the entire place was on its feet and roaring. Keb Mo was celebrating his 60th birthday. He did a lot to make all people of his vintage understand that there is a lot of life in us yet.
So we leave Nashville after having seen and heard some fair to good country and
some excellent blues. We have spotted an Appalachian music and arts festival thing over in Anderson County near-ish to Knoxville which is on our way, more or less, to the Smoky Mountains and Charleston, so we are headed there for a couple of nights. Still checking out dulcimers but it looks like the dobros are not a goer.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 10; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0328s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sojourner1208
William
Texas is like a whole other country.
I hope you work Texas into your trip, and especially San Antonio. There is more to do and see in San Antonio than you can possibly do. If you make it to the Riverwalk I highly reccomend the Original Mexican Restaurant which is open 24/7. This is the best time of year by far to visit Texas.