Coming out of the closet in Nashville - part two

Next stop, Memphis, Tennessee. Twice a day, at the storied 1920s Peabody Hotel, five ducks march to and from the lobby fountain to the music of John Philip Sousa (composer of ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’). I can easily see ducks in Toronto’s harbour and wasn’t prepared to stand half an hour, so I could be sure of seeing more.

Instead, I walked down the street. Boy! Do they show the flag in Memphis.

The ‘birthplace of the Blues’ – Beale Street – is in Memphis. There was live music in a nearby park and great neon. As well as trains, I love neon.

I had been here before – to cover a major medical story in the 1980s. But I’d never been to Graceland. Remember – Elvis began as a country singer and was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame ten years ago.

The house (in which you can take pictures, but with no flash, so bad photos) is surprisingly modest by today’s megastar standards. But, for someone with only a condo balcony, the backyard’s reasonably impressive.


So is Elvis’s private plane – a Convair 880, a smaller version of the old Boeing 707. It has gold-plated seat buckles and a double bed, and was named for his daughter.



And he didn’t do badly for ground transport either. Graceland has thirty-three of Elvis’s cars and motorcycles. I rather liked this retro Caddy.

But, all good things must come to an end. I could have taken away an Elvis replica jumpsuit for $3,300 (USD), but decided not to.

Ed and Pauline, a delightful French Canadian couple from a town of three thousand in Northern Ontario, were in the bus seats next to mine. Ed had been a train engineer, miner and jail guard. Given that I know little about small northern towns and have done my lifelong best to avoid manual labour, we could not be more different. Still, we got along like a house on fire and, at the end of the trip, when Ed said he wanted me to visit and we’d go fishing, I knew he really meant it.

Here Ed, complete with Elvis button, occupies a Tennessee bench. There’s also a second picture showing Pauline. It’s not a great composition, but I include it because she has such an interesting face.

At last! We’re approaching Opryland!

But before we get to the Grand Ole Opry, I should emphasize that Nashville doesn’t see itself as a southern hick town. It claims the moniker the ‘Athens of the South’, in part because of a goodly number of universities, including prestigious Vanderbilt. So, why not have a Parthenon – a full-sized replica complete with statue of the goddess Athena? Given that the ‘Athens of the South’ is also the ‘buckle of the bible belt’, I doubt whether animal sacrifices are encouraged.

Evangelicals or not, the locals have some sense of humour. Here’s the Nashville AT&T building, dubbed the ‘Batman building’.

But the main goal or, at least, my main goal of the trip was the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry began as a radio show in the Twenties and, for many years, performances were broadcast from the Ryman Auditorium. Once the Union Gospel Tabernacle and still standing, it’s the so-called ‘Mother Church of Country Music’.

Gospel is one of country’s major elements. Just think of some of the early titles – ‘River of Jordan’, ‘The Old Rugged Cross’, ‘That Glory Bound Train’. In Nashville, the ‘Protestant Vatican’ and where bible publishing is a major industry, all the strands come together – like the strings on Buck Trent’s banjo!

Here’s the Opry in the 1930s.

In 1974, the Grand Ole Opry moved to a new home. The Opry now seats more than four thousand and doesn’t have the traditional atmosphere of the Ryman. However, the radio broadcast – supplemented by television – continues and I greatly enjoyed the more folksy first half of the program. The second half was contemporary. One of the performers – Jean Shepard – is a sprightly 74. The songs ranged from ‘The Tennessee Waltz’ to ‘Second Fiddle to an Old Guitar’ and ‘Happy Trails to You’. Here’s the Opry and Tennessee flag.


I had half expected to see a lot of cowboy hats, bouffant hairdos and perhaps the odd jug of moonshine, but, in the words of the old Carl Perkins song, that’s largely ‘Gone! Gone! Gone!’ Like most places that become legends, it wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for (and, in my more rational moments, had known it wouldn’t be), but that didn’t detract from the experience.

At the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, I could look at Kitty Wells’ guitar and think of the days when I sniggered at country. Perhaps it was the names – Dolly, Merle, Ernest Tubb - but, there was honesty in the music and the lyrics often movingly spoke of the hard times endured by people far less fortunate than I.


On the way back to Toronto, I found myself thinking. This was the first time in my life that I have ever travelled a few thousand miles for music.

When I was at boarding school, on my visits home I would find Father – an English gentleman and certainly no hillbilly – enjoying a program called ‘Don Messer’s Jubilee’. This was a ‘Down East’ (as in the Canadian Maritimes) TV barn dance show with plenty of fiddles, banjos and harmonicas. Nasty little brat that I was, I laughed at dear old Dad. I said it was corny. Nowadays, I have a Don Messer CD. To steal an old country lyric, the circle is unbroken.

From now on, don’t be surprised if you find in my living room – and in shockingly open view – CDs of Curley Williams & His Georgia Peach Pickers and Boots Woodall & His Radio Wranglers. I will no longer hide them under the sofa. And so, to conclude, I’m coming out of the closet with one of my favourite singers.