Nashville again, a great place 19th September and on

Nashville 19th September 2014 onwards

One of the tours recommended  was the Studio B tour which was built in 1957 by RCA, its so famous as so many stars made their recordings, in fact Elvis made 260 recordings there, Patsy Cline (one of my favourites) Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, Chet Williams, Chet Wilson, The Everly Brothers, Charley Pride, Willie Nelson, Jim Reeves and so many more.

On the way to the studio the guide told us some great stories about the "stars" and the history of the buildings.
Its now a museum and a classroom for Nashville students, the guides are very good.

We sat in the room where the recordings were done and the piano Elvis played is there. There are various keyboards, drum sets and recording desks all original are still there.

The original piano Elvis played in the dark

This is the gold piano Elvis played (it was in the Country Music hall of Fame)

At one point the lights were turned off which we heard an original recording playing and found out that Elvis loved to play and sing in the dark he also asked for the lighting to be changed to various muted colours, apparently Don and I were sitting in the exact spot known as the "sweet spot" (the best place for sound) that Elvis had stood.

Elvis liked coloured lights

Don has spoken about playing the guitar but I think these 2 are way to big

The guide told us a story about when Dolly Parton first came to the studio she arrived one day in her Cadillac and hit the wall dislodging a few bricks, she never said a word about it. Then a few weeks later she was asked did she know anything about the hole in the wall, she said "it was my first big hit at this studio"

Dolly's first big hit

 At the bottom of the road the call music row is a roundabout with a huge sculpture of 9 naked people, its quite controversial and sometimes its covered up or folk put clothes on it for fun but it was there in all its glory when we saw it

This statue is called "Musica"

The original Grand Ole Opry known as the Ryman building was open so we did the tour inside there too.

So many huge stars played here

We have hundreds of pictures of the memorabilia but far too many to put here, maybe someday we can show you.

Of course how could we visit Nashville without going to see a show at the new Grand Ole Opry.

Pretty cool dudes eh! check out the boots and hats, they were drawing in the crowds

The show has various artists mostly for 2 songs and introduced by various artists who also "did their bit" at the same time the show is a live WSM radio broadcast. There was one young guy named Mo Pitney singing, he is amazing, move over Garth Brooks! The audience went crazy shouting for more, so he was asked to do and extra song, he had the whole place standing and applauding. If you youtube him you can hear and see him.

http://www.opry.com/artist/mo-pitney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq16RQW3W9I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onVquVTogDQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP5x2npI6vI

Click on the links, turn up the sound, hope you enjoy it!

As we had the car we took a drive out of town to Centennial park which housed "The Parthenon" which is a full size replica of the one in Greece which was built in 1897 to mark the Tennessee Centennial Exposition, no mean feat all those years ago.

I have been to see the original in Greece its in quite a bad way

Athena how she was supposed to look 

All that gold detail

In the palm of her hand

The nitty grity

 There was some kind of a "dog show" going on in the park, hundreds of doggies every where they even had their own food trucks

 Overall we would have liked to have spent more time there and seen more but on we must go, did I mention we like Nashville? I'll bet we return another day.

So next stop a long drive to Washington DC

BFN
Don and Glenys on the USA land trip.
Agua Therapy all alone in Grenada