When this blog publishes, I will be in Nashville, Tennessee. It's my 11th trip to the Music City to attend STR’s Hotel Data Conference, a three-day event of data, data and more data about the hotel industry.
Non-U.S. accents are a rarity at the event, but there are a few, either coming from Europe or expats.
There were two years I did not attend in the last decade and a half — one during the pandemic and the year after that when the show was half-attendee, half-virtual.
This year, due to life’s pressing requirements, I will be essentially just jetting in and out, but in those 11 visits I have seen unique and wonderful aspects of the middle of the U.S.
Here are some highlights and readers might have time to see one or two. Aptly, all but one are music-related.
1. FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama
In a building that looks like a carpet warehouse has come some of music’s greatest moments, from Aretha Franklin to Otis Redding, from Primal Scream to the Rolling Stones, who recorded “Wild Horses” there. A tour of the facility unveils a mishmash of machinery and electric leads, but perhaps its unkemptness led to a sound that other studios would dream of. Every recording is supported by the Muscle Shoals Swampers, an in-house rhythm section that appears on most of those unforgettable 45s.
FAME Studios is 125 miles southwest of Nashville along the delightful Natchez Trace Parkway, on which advertising is illegal.
2. Bluegrass in the Park Folklife Festival in Henderson, Kentucky
On the banks of the Ohio River, every August the small town of Henderson puts on a free bluegrass festival, two days of music underpinned by local band Kings Highway. This event is very relaxed with crowds arriving with deckchairs in hand.
I have attended the festival three times. If my flight from London through Chicago or Charlotte allows — and if the traffic from Nashville permits — I could just make it in time to run the Fox on the River 5K race that kickstarts the event. I was running on fumes by that time, and after some barbecue food, I was ready for sleep. Henderson, Kentucky is 140 miles north of Nashville.
3. Still Hollow Half Marathon in Enterprise State Park, Chattanooga, Tennessee
One must remember that Chattanooga, even though it is in Tennessee, is one hour ahead of Nashville. Upon my arrival in Nashville, I head to the Chattanooga Brewery, which is where the registration used to be for the half-marathon used to be. The brewery has a partnership with Chattanooga Football Club, which I saw beat the Savannah Clovers 5-0 two years ago. That was fun.
The run might not be to everyone’s taste — 13.1 hard miles in the rugged trails of Enterprise State Park, but the camaraderie of the runners is excellent — and I am always invited to someone’s post-race breakfast.
Chattanooga itself is a wonderful city to walk around, big enough but not overwhelming, and lies 130 miles southeast of Nashville.
4. Weaver D’s Delicious Fine Foods in Athens, Georgia
Athens is of course home of rock legends REM — as well as of the B-52s — but it because of REM that I once took my longest drive from Nashville.
I do not buy any vinyl from Wuxtry Records, as I fear breaking it in my airplane luggage, but this is where guitarist Peter Buck used to work. Then there are the abandoned wooden railway trestles pictured on the band’s first LP “Murmur” — which was the first thing I bought with my first paycheck. Then, take a walk on the edge of the small city, after which fried chicken is the order of the day at Weaver D’s restaurant. The establishment is immortalized on REM's eighth LP “Automatic for the People,” which has always been the slogan on the sign above Weaver D’s front door.
Athens, Georgia, is 300 miles southeast of Nashville — nothing for the average American driver — and one can stop off in Chattanooga!
5. Lester Flatt’s birthplace in Livingston, Tennessee
I inadvertently found this spot driving along smaller roads on a circuitous route between Chattanooga and Nashville, about 100 miles east of the Music City.
Having a coffee in the city’s principal square, I started chatting with someone, and I asked him what Livingston was famous for.
He replied, “Have you heard of Lester Flatt?”
“The composer, along with Earl Scruggs, of ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’,” I replied.
“Sure is,” he answered.
That piece of music is regarded as the examination for entry in the serious banjo-players’ union. Get it right, and you are regarded as a kindred spirit, and — no, I do not play — my uncle used to play it to me when I was a child. There is also a monument to Lester Flatt in Sparta, Tennessee. It's these sorts of small towns that make the U.S. the U.S.
6. Elvis Presley Birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi
Years ago, when I was in Tupelo for the Tupelo Marathon — it is in August so starts at 5 a.m. — I stopped by Elvis’ boyhood home.
I do not believe the actual very small home is genuine. I seem to remember Elvis' parents placing the original on a flatbed truck and driving it to Memphis, the city in which Presley became famous. But the property, or a facsimile, is here, as are a gift shop, museum and memorial garden, but there also is the church Elvis prayed in as a youth. It was moved from its original spot here, and inside it every 30 minutes or an hour there is a 3D re-creation of the type of religious service Elvis would have attended, and while that has all the likelihood of being very corny, it is excellently portrayed. I was there in 2018, and the birthplace has transformed completely from when I first went in 1995, when it was the home and nothing else.
Maybe you can see one or two of these places this year or the next time you visit Nashville for HDC. You can even ask me how I was asked to leave — well, thrown out of — Elvis’ home.
See you in Nashville.
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