Tennessee is an elusive state for me. The first time I lived in North Carolina (for 12 years), I never so much as crossed the border into it. Not once. Not for 12 years. Then, my life took a detour through Utah and The West for 7 years (some people say “that was needed so that you can fix your heart”; I say it to myself “in more ways than one”), and I have been back for 8 years now and I have been to Tennessee twice. The call of the mountains, or of the music is strong this time.
Crossing the border from NC and TN would only break your heart nowadays - the beautiful Smokies are still so very much damaged by Hurricane Helene which hit almost 2 years ago in September. The storms practically washed away the mighty Interstate 40 (that connects the West to the East Coast) into a huge ravine. And outside of one lane of traffic in each direction, most of the highway is still broken. It broke my heart. We seem to have no money to fix our own roads but find money for more destruction elsewhere ... Boggles my head!
We went through The Volunteer State on our trip back from The West, in the fall of 2017. The magic of riding the Music Highway (the stretch of interstate 40 that connects Memphis to Nashville) has whispered to me ever since. In parts visibly poor, Tennessee is like an old country song - winding, mellow and going on forever ...
Since dad passed in 2022, I have felt even a stronger connection to the music he loved and which he imparted with us all of his life. That music included a wide range of styles and performers, from Wilson Picket to Bob Dylan, from Elvis to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones to Willie Nelson, CCR and The Eagles. Going to Tennessee and listening to the music tales talks to you about all of it. And more.
The Highwaymen: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson
I found Nashville and Tennessee to be a place of many things and not one thing in particular ... We toured The Hatch Print Shop where many music legends have printed their concert posters since 1879 and we learned that Tennessee was, at the time, known for printing.
Entering The Hatch Show Print Shop, outside The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Then, we toured the Belle Meade Mansion and we learned how it was the premier 19th-century thoroughbred horse farm - if you were anyone who was into racing horses and wanted English-bread racing horses in America, you came to Belle Meade Plantation in Tennessee. Even Kentucky people would come to Belle Meade for their horses.
The Belle Meade Plantation House
Visiting the “fake Parthenon” construction (or to say it nicely, the “Parthenon replica” in Centennial Park, you learn that the reason they built it there was that Nashville was at one point considered “The Athens of the South” given that since the early 1800s, the city established many schools like Davidson Academy, Fisk University, Meharry Medical College, and Vanderbilt University.
The Parthenon replica in Centennial Park, Nashville, TN
Athena's statue inside the "Parthenon"
As I said - a place of many things and not one thing in particular. Except, that is, for music.
Music is what called our names to it this time, and music is what pops in my head when I say “Tennessee”. Elvis and Grand Ole Opry, in particular. But this is one trip that widened that limited spectrum. We found a place vibrating with anything from country to swing to rock’n’roll and pop.
Looking back to this short trip (only 3 days), it is hard to pick a favorite adventure.
The Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame was a bucket-list pick. I remember my first country vinyl record. Dad brought it to us back in Communist Romania when I was in highschool. Where he smuggled it from during a time when Western music was all but banned and the acquisition of which was punishable with jail, I will never know. I also can’t remember whether the original artists were playing it or if they were some bands doing covers on it. But I remember playing that thing till it was good and scratched after which it gave it that old-record scratchy sound ... I remember playing Yellow Rose of Texas and Oh, Susanna about 10,000 times a day. I believe those were some of the first songs I learned all the lyrics to in English.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
And from then on, I have been irreparably in love with the country stories. There was no turning back ... There is no escape for a writer to not be trapped in the beauty of telling a whole-life story in just a few lyrics that might not even take a page. And that is what country music is for me ... It’s the stories that lodge this music securely into every corner of my heart. The strong, crystal-clear voices (and every single country singer has one, without exception) are second to the perfect stringing of the words.
That old, scratched up vinyl record held the mystery of what America meant for me at the time, and to some degree this music still does. A country of people always cross with the world, who feel more than anyone can express, and live to tell the tale, despite all odds. And always, always come on top. So, I went to Nashville to try to find some of that mystery, some of that fairytale land that cooked up in my head since I was in ninth grade.
To this day, I like the old timey, bluegrass, Americana songs. No disrespect to today’s million-dollar stars (and no disrespect to pop, either), but they poppified it too much for me. I wanna be able to pick out the banjo, and the fiddle, and the big-old bass, and the harmonica, and the accordion in the band, one droplet of sound at a time ... “It’s the dialogue between the instruments that makes the magic” dad used to say, “just listen how one talks to another and how the other one replies.”
I have been to museums where they display statues, and cars, and trains, and paintings, and natural landscapes, and food, and drinks, even. I have never been nor would I have imagined that you can display music in-between 4 walls. But that is the Country Music Museum and the Johnny Cash Museum too ... Every physical display is only secondary to a central music-playing device (a TV, a radio, a computer) ... You walk the history lane of country music, from the early 19th century musicians who passed away in anonymity, playing on barn thresholds and deep, wide, wrap-around Southern porches and you end up with today’s younger artists.
We found out that the “newly-inducted” artists in the Country Music Hall of Fame does not necessarily mean contemporary ones: I could not quite believe that June Carter Cash was inducted in the Hall of Fame only last year (2025), while her famous husband, Johnny, has been there since 1980, and she played music publicly a lot longer (by almost 20 years) than he did! The Country Music Hall of Fame is a little behind, I thought.
Listening to this music reminded me why I wanted to be an American so bad. It’s the juice of what’s good in America - the grit, the strong feelings, the passions, the unrequited love and trouble with the law, and its survival despite the odds, the journeys coast to coast, the fearlessness against every challenge...
One thing that will stay with me both from the Country Music Museum and the Johnny Cash one (within walking distance from one another) is, in addition to the music playing constantly at every step, you could read so many of their hand-written letters. Like I said - country music is nothing if not stories first. And you can read those letters and you can see where it all started from. With Johnny, for instance, giving his daughters advice and them journaling about how hard and painful it was to be in the shadow of famous parents.
If you are ever wondering what town you're in wandering the streets of Nashville, murals like this will remind you ...
After about a half day taking in and paying respect to the many artists in Country music (walking into the round room of the country music hall of fame members has a church-like, reverence quietness about it; it exudes awe and quiet respect) , we headed towards the Honky Tonk District, which I didn’t even know existed until shortly before we arrived to Nashville. It’s a funky mix of live music, “cheese”, Southern kitsch and an opportunity to gawk at drinking people having fun, having left all inhibitions at home, till your eyeballs hurt.
The circular room of the Hall of Fame Museum
Taking in a new (to me) city, savoring its food and just strolling seemingly focusless, through its streets is my favorite kind of sightseeing ... Spending half of a day on the Honky Tonk highway, where every single establishment is an open bar with a live band, you realize you have indeed arrived in the capital of music. It reminded me of when I visited New Orleans for the first time in 2004: every bar, every pub, every restaurant and every street corner had a live performer. That was gone later, after Katrina and in the winter ... But on this trip, it felt like all that moved to Nashville ...
The start of the Honk Tonk Highway, outside the Johnny Cash Museum
We had lunch at Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottoms Up Restaurant & Bar, listening to new local talent playing on the stage, where the light fixtures above your head at the table are real cowboy hats. I had to stop there - I wore nothing but my dad’s old bell-bottom jeans from the 60s all through my college years, and I am sure those pants are still at my mom’s house in the attic somewhere... It had to be done.
After walking around for a while and listening to live music thrown out from every window, passing by places like the Jon Bon Jovi’s Bar, Nudie’s Honky Tonk (highly recommend seeing the Nudie mobile exhibit at the Country Music Museum; talk about something truly American - wow!), Friends in Low Places Honky Tonk, we stopped for a drink at The Honky Tonk Central, with its three stories all with a different-style band (from country to hard rock). If you wanted to line dance with a pickin’ band, you stopped on the first floor. We climbed all the way to third to listen to rock cover songs and take in the entire district from the balcony.
View from the third floor of the Honky Tonk Central
Detail of the Nudie Mobile
We had dinner just outside the Honky Tonk Highway, at The Diner - a Nashville staple in the SoBro (South of Broadway) District, a 24/7, 6 story restaurant. Again, we climbed to the top floor to take in the city view, as the sun was setting and everything seemed pink and tired.
View from the sixth floor of The Diner Restaurant in the SoBro District
People are so nice in Nashville. I guess it’s sort of expected, if you’re in The South, right? But the city has a weird, cheesy, touristy, Las Vegas-like vibe to it too ... An interesting mix.
I was just a hundreth of an inch close to walking away with two pairs of these. The place is contagious for boots!
On our second full day there, we visited the Belle Meade Mansion and then Centennial Park with the Parthenon replica. It is indeed just a replica, but it is very impressive. On the bottom floor, there is a historic timeline of its full construction which I found fascinating. You can mock it for America being again a copy-cat (Venice-like canals or The Trevi Fountain in Vegas, anyone?!), but there was planning, and thought, and research, and lots of money, and years to accomplish what you look at today. I think, all in all, worth seeing.
We crowned our stay with the best, most rewarding experience of all: a night at The Grand Ole Opry (the new one, almost outside of town, and not the old, historic one which is now known as the Ryman Auditorium, downtown), where we were treated to a live show from the artists that created the soundtrack for the movie Oh, Brother Where Art Thou?. Can you believe that movie is now 25 years old?
The Ryman Auditorium (today), the original Grand Ole Opry House
Talk about a bucket-list moment. Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, The Whites, The Fairfield Four, Chris Thomas King, Tim Blake Nelson, Billy Strings, T. Bone Burnett put together a show like no other that I have ever seen. I have seen many music biopics picturing acts from the 50’s and 60’s and it was much like that - the stage was never empty, and one act followed another at stupefying speed, with almost no break. An announcer would present them and on the stage they headed, guitars and other instruments around their necks and in their hands. One amazing rendition after another. I thought I died and went to heaven - I knew every lyric.
Everyone who is is anyone was on that stage
The energy and the passion they put into every song, everyone, from the little girls from The Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters to the old men of The Fairfield Four gave us the spectacle of our lifetime. I have been to many shows, a lot of them I lived to go to all of my life, but never in my 50 years have I seen an entire auditorium smiling and truly, genuinely happy, altogether, all at the same time. Not a frown, not a hateful word, not a petty spat. Everyone sang along and clapped, and stomped their feet and left happy. Especially in today’s world, to see this, to feel it through your bones, it was magical.
And I blame it all, of course, on this music. This old timey music with relatable stories (the only thing this music requires to relate to is just to be human, although I am pretty sure it could even move my cat) connects people. Makes you happy to be alive, and heck, it even makes you happy to be dead one day, too, when the songs tell you about this fairy land you hope to go one day where “... the little streams of alcohol come trickling down the rocks”.
That concert cured my troubled soul which has had a hard time settling in the past few years for good and proper. It brought me home - to a stronger home than the physical one - a spiritual and heart-felt one - the only one, the soulful one, the only one that truly matters ...
And it restored my bridges to what I still (despite all evidence to the contrary lately) love about America. It mended what has been hurting for 10 years now, and it gave me hope.
Driving out of Nashville, the echos of the voices of Billy Strings, Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski were still playing softly in my head ... “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are blue ...”
Leaving The City of Music (for me) in the rearview mirror and rolling through my head the slide show of all the many artists we visited at the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum, all the recognizable names I stumbled into on the Honky Tonk Highway, made me also think of my dad and how much, oh how painfully much, I would have loved to share this with him.
I remember him being puzzled one day because I was telling him a dress he wanted to buy for mom was “funky” looking. He said in perfect English: “Funky? What is funky? You mean honky. Honky tonk women? O-bla-di. O-bla-da.” My dad might have not known English, but he knew his music. And I am glad for this short excursion to treasure more of it myself, right from where it all started.
