LATE GREATS AND LIVING STARS

From St. Louis to Nashville

Click here to continue to Alabama.

Email:  Sue@PrintsPublishing.com

HomePage:  www.PrintsPublishing.com

Last time I left St. Louis, I drove north back to Minnesota.  This time we headed south.

The cool and damp morning turned into a deluge.  The wipers couldn’t keep up and it was kind of scary.

It lasted kind of long and we saw a big fifth-wheel jackknifed across the road on the other side of the median.  It backed up traffic for miles and miles and we were thankfully going in the other direction.

This is not the first bridge we saw that was all metal and looks like it was built with an erector set.

And then we arrived at the DoubleTree in downtown Nashville.  I actually took this picture of a picture hanging in the Country Music Hall of Fame the next day, but this gives you an idea of where we were.

We walked a couple blocks to Music Row, where budding musicians sang their hearts out to anyone who would listen, in every bar and restaurant.

We walked about three or four blocks down one side of the street and then the other.

This cowboy was really good so we stepped inside and ordered chicken wings.

Elvis seems to fit in everywhere.

There were banners in the street recognizing the recent death of Merle Haggard.  Maybe you’ve noticed that people of all ages are attracted to Nashville.

Wannabees also sang on the sidewalks along Music Row.

And in the alleys too.

The next morning we walked to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

At first it was like walking through my childhood, and I again got to watch and hear Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and Gene Autry.

It’s very large and modern, as you can see, and you can also see the long, long line of people waiting to get into the museum.  We were glad to be there early and at the front of the line.

It would take years and years to listen to all the country western music on these gold records.

Not every country music singer gets inducted into the Hall of Fame.  I recognized many of the names, like Reba MacEntire, Roy Clark, Garth Brooks, even Homer and Jethro.

Do you see Eddy Arnold and Charley Pride and Emmylou Harris and the Original Carter Family and Jim Reeves?  But some of the Hall of Famers were not familiar to me.

Now they’ll have to add the death date to this plaque.

I enjoyed sitting down and watching and listening to some of the old re-run shows.  Maybe you also recognize Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Glenn Campbell.

The Museum included napkins and paper bags where musicians first wrote out lyrics to some of their songs.

It was still morning when we left Nashville and continued to head south.

I wouldn’t say it was pretty country.  It seemed to be poor country.