Today is our last day to explore Nashville, and we have a pretty busy agenda. We headed back downtown to the Country Music Hall of Fame to get our tickets to Studio B, which John highly recommended that we see. When we toured the Hall of Fame on Monday, it was too late to go to Studio B, but the tours left from the Museum, so that was our first stop. We had to wait an hour for our tour bus, but it was well worth it. Studio B, in its day, was one of only 2 recording studios in Nashville, and it was the one used by Elvis as well as many other big names. It is still used today, although Nashville is inundated with recording studios now. But the original tape recorders, and many of the instruments used back then, are still in place.
The black, grand piano that Elvis used is still there. I have seen this in some of the videos of his taping sessions. It was also used by lots of other famous singers.
There were several other pieces of original equipment still in place. Our tour guide played several short pieces of hit records recorded here, and the sound was amazing.
There are colored lights in the ceiling, which Elvis had added, for ambience when he sang. He like blue for love songs, red for the rockin' songs, and white for his religious recordings. When he recorded "Are You Lonesome Tonight," they couldn't get the blue lights to work, and he tried the others but didn't like them, so he recorded that one totally in the dark, and in one take.
One of the funny stories they tell is than when Dolly Parton came for her very first recording session, she was running late and accidentally hit the side of the building. They call that her "first hit" in Studio B. You can still see where the concrete on the outside wall is a little different.
We concluded this tour and walked back downtown on Broadway for some lunch. We could here live music coming from some of the restaurants, so we picked one out and sat down for a while. We only got to hear this gal sing one song, but (at our request) it was Patsy Cline's "Walkin After Midnight." She did a pretty good job, but nothing like Terri Clark last night. There was a great wall-size picture of the Clydesdales on the wall here.
From there, it was a short walk to the Ryman Auditorium, the famous home of the Grand Ole Opry until 1974. This building was originally a church, and the seats are still church pews. There are stained glass windows in the building, but they were not there originally.
We watched a short video and looked at the exhibits here. Then we walked down to the stage. Interestingly, the Monkees are performing here tonight.
Joe took some pictures from the balcony. Looks like all the seats have pretty good views. This building has wonderful acoustics, second only to the Mormon Tabernacle, even better than Carnegie Hall.
We had been on our feet for a long time by now, but we headed back down Broadway and walked into a few of the shops (mostly the boot stores). You would think we were in Texas from the size of some things, though.
I was glad to see that Elvis had gotten rid of the riff-raff from yesterday and was now mine alone.
We limped our way back to the car, but we had one more stop on our agenda -- the American Picker's store here, called Antique Archeology. We found this in a big warehouse area, not the best neighborhood.
This place redefines "Junk." I didn't see anything of any value here, although Joe was one miniature car that he thought he had watched the show where they "picked" it. They had books about picking, and some new t-shirts, including ones that said "In Rust We Trust." We didn't find anything here we needed.
This was an Indian motorcycle.
I thought this was probably in the best shape of anything in here.
Joe thought he remembered when they found this treasure on TV.
Lots of stuff hanging from the ceiling.
Finally, we headed back to the RV and rested for a few hours. We had decided to go to a restaurant with live music for dinner (I had a coupon), so we went to John A's, which was only about a mile down the road. Our entertainer was singer/songwriter Dan Schafer, who has played backup for lots of big names including Shania Twain, George Jones, and Barbara Mandrell. We weren't too impressed with him, and were happy to call it a day.
We enjoyed our time here in Nashville and would definitely recommend it as a vacation destination. I really enjoyed the tour of Studio B and all the Elvis history. Cowboy hats and boots are very popular here, with shorts or summer dresses for the gals. There's lots to see and do here, and we hope to stop here again when we come back through this part of the country. We would like to go to the Opry on a weekend to see if they have the old standard performances (comedians, short skits, etc.) that they didn't have on Tuesday night.
All in all, Nashville was an Excellent Adventure.
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