Recommendations for visiting Nashville

The first thing to note is that this year, Nashville is marking its bicentennial. Check out the events and exhibits at the city's Celebrate Nashville website.

If you begin your tour on, say, the north side of the city, you'll find that the campus of Fisk University (Wikipedia article, map) has a couple of gorgeous buildings, most notably Jubilee Hall. The Fisk Jubilee Singers, whose tours originally raised the money to construct a campus for freed slaves, are an act not to be missed. (They performed at the October 1st Celebrate Nashville Public Square reopening and dedication; watch on YouTube Kirk Whalum's Tennessee Waltz rendition from the same occasion.) There is also Fisk's Aaron Douglas Gallery, housing African art. The northern boundary of the campus is Jefferson Street (website), home of the annual Jefferson Street Jazz and Blues Festival in June.

Vanderbilt University, moving west and south, is a pleasant campus (Wikipedia article, map) with lots of stately magnolia trees and a very busy campus neighborhood. In that general vicinity, there is also Centennial Park (Wikipedia article, map), on the steps of whose Parthenon building the climax of Robert Altman's 1975 film Nashville takes place. If you meet anyone down there who claims to be a real, old-time, original Nashvillian, ask 'em about the Nativity Scene which Harvey's department store sponsored every Christmas in front of the Parthenon. If you get a blank stare, your "Nashvillian" is from Cleveland.

Head up nearby Elliston Place if you'd like to see the Exit/In (website, map), where Keith Carradine memorably sang his Oscar-winning "I'm easy" in that same movie (what! you haven't rented it yet?). You remember: his estranged GF/rhythm guitarist Cristina Raines knows that he's singing the song for her... except that Geraldine Chaplin knows he's really singing it for her... except that Shelley Duval knows he's really singing it for her. The camera moves from one fervent face to another, but way in the back of the smoke-filled room, transfixed, not daring to believe she might be the one, sits Lily Tomlin. The Exit/In scene alone is worth the price of admission, and you will send unbelievers to study it whenever you find yourself insisting that works of art allow for competing and mutually exclusive interpretations, or when you want to show with what promiscuous smugness we attribute to an artist a meaning dictated by our own wishful thinking. This scene is greatly admired by my brother Kevin, who writes that it "is not only the most emotionally affecting scene in this film, but in possibly any film of Altman's. And for so many reasons... not the least of which is how, in a single, slow tracking-shot, sans dialogue, so much meaning is conveyed through gestures and facial expressions. It is a scene, like so many in the film, in which nuance and subtlety are everything."

But I digress, and this food for thought is hollow and empty next to the Reuben sandwich you will eat across the street at Rotier's (review website, map), and the fountain drink you'll get at the wonderful and untouched-by-Disney-hands Elliston Place Soda Shop (review website, map). If lunch leaves you feeling intellectual, drop in at Elder's Bookstore (website, map), then check out Nashville's premier competitive pool, at the Centennial Sportsplex (website, map). Come back to the Centennial Park neighborhood in the evening to take in some music at Springwater (website, map), "a dive that is becoming legendary with the locals for authentic, PBR-fueled, hard-core country, out-there rock and stuff that defies categorization," or so says my brother Chris.

Parthenon  Union Station  Jubilee Hall, Fisk University  

Also near Vanderbilt, but on the opposite side, is Music Row (website, map), where some of the best recording studios in the country, and some of the best pick-up musicians, are located. Start a fight in Nashville by bringing up Music Row's own public sculpture, Musica.

Turning back east and moving down Broadway from the Vandy neighborhood, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts (website, map) is a wonderful gallery, very much worth a visit for its own sake, and likely to be offering interesting exhibits. While you're in that neighborhood, next door is Union Station, now a glam hotel (Wikipedia article), but once the main train station in Nashville.

Continuing in your downtown direction (ie heading east) and staying on the south side of Broadway, you should consider the Nashville Symphony Project / Schermerhorn Symphony Center a must-see destination (website, map). As long as you're thinking musically, and assuming you're thinking ecumenically, cross over to see a Nashville institution whose focus has become increasingly diversified in recent years: the Country Music Hall of Fame (website, map). The museum's current exhibit (website) is "I Can't Stop Lovin' You: Ray Charles and Country Music," and the previous exhibit "Night Train from Nashville" (website) documented Nashville's Jefferson Street blues / R & B scene. Head just a couple of blocks north and you'll be at the historic Ryman Auditorium (Wikipedia article, map), traditional (and now winter) home of Le Grand Opéra de Nashville (website, Wikipedia article) (which summers at Opryland). Just downhill from the Ryman, on Lower Broadway, there are lots of places to get a drink, like Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, but few vestiges of the "real" honky-tonk thing. (Disneyfication proceeds apace, but see this YouTube footage to have a preview of what's there.)

While you're in the heart of downtown, don't miss the brand new Downtown Public Library (map), whose third-floor reading room, looking out in a grand vista towards the capitol, is as stately and inspiring as any I've seen. Take a glance at the Downtown YMCA (website), just up Church Street a couple of blocks, where you might want to go work out if you are staying nearby. As long as you're downtown, there is the Tennessee State Museum (Wikipedia article) (where I haven't been since fourth grade, if then, but that proves nothing). Somewhere downtown is my brother's office building, and the Metro Courthouse where Metro Council meets (Wikipedia article, related website, map). I provide this information just in case, as a devout Buffalonian non-believer, you would care to see a decades-old merged city-county government in action. Notice that the Courthouse sits on a Public Square which is actually a green roof covering a four-story parking garage. There are lots of good places to eat on 2nd Avenue North, a wonderfully restored area, and you can easily visit adjacent Fort Nashboro, the original settlement on the Cumberland River (or rather, the original European settlement) (Wikipedia article, map). Second Avenue and Printers Alley (parallel and one block west) are the heart of Nashville nightlife and, I'm told, a good place to spend Saturday night. To repent the next morning, cross the river and head over to East Nashville to the Born Again Church (related website, map) to hear the gospel music of the Winan family.

Fort Nashborough  Fort Nashborough  Fort Nashborough  Second Avenue North  Second Avenue North

If you'd like to drive 12 miles out to Donelson, where I grew up and, more importantly, where Andrew Jackson had a home, you can visit the Hermitage (website, map). If you're in Nashville during the Christmas season, you might as well, while you're in Donelson, check out the Country Christmas display at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel (website, map) which is actually better than you would expect, though it is wise to go with uninflated expectations. Or you can head out in the opposite direction and see Cheekwood Botanical Gardens (Wikipedia article, map) or, in the same general neighborhood, Belle Meade Plantation (Wikipedia article, map). If you head further west, taking Highway 100, right next to the northern trailhead for the amazing Natchez Trace, you'll find the Loveless Café (website, map), where if you can get a seat, you can get country ham, grits, and red eye gravy. It's wise to make reservations or else be prepared to wait a while. If you can't wait, console yourself by buying some of the nice preserves they sell in the next door shop, and then driving a couple of miles west to Camp Marymount (website, map), where I'd just as soon you didn't go in (but if you must, don't touch anything). Camp Marymount's annual canoe trips used to take place on the Little Harpeth River (rent your own canoe here), which runs along the western boundary of Nashville's Edwin and Percy Warner Parks (website, map). Any time we were in the Harpeth, we would collect what we called "wampum" or "Indian money," not knowing that these beads, scattered over the miles and miles of land now lost to its original inhabitants, came from belts which had been specially made to serve as mnemonics or tokens of contracts and treaties, all of which have been long since broken. In the same general vicinity is Radnor Lake (website, map).

Little Harpeth River  Flock of wild turkeys  Percy Warner Park

Kids will like the Adventure Science Center (website, map), and if you're in that vicinity, visit newly restored Fort Negley (website, Wikipedia article, map), constructed after the capture of Nashville by Union forces in 1862. And if you brought your bike or even just your sneakers, you will love the many greenways and parks right in Nashville.

Take a 50-mile road trip out to Columbia, in Maury County, and see the Ashwood Rural Historic District (web site, map), which sounds interesting: "The district includes intact plantation complexes and Canaan, a small black community formed after the Civil War. The area provides significant illustrations of life for African Americans in antebellum rural Middle Tennessee." Another field trip could take you 75 miles from Nashville to Lynchburg, in Moore County, where you'll see the Jack Daniel's Distillery (Wikipedia article, map). If you find yourself enjoying alcohol tourism, you might as well press on to Tullahoma, home of the George Dickel Distillery (Wikipedia article, map). A 100-mile drive will get you to Mammoth Cave (website, map) in Kentucky.

Loveless café  Robin goes to horror movie  Prehistoric bird  Birds

It used to be that we exiles from the south would restore ourselves on barbecue whenever we were down home, although now you can get excellent barbecue in Buffalo. Taste it in Nashvile at Mothership BBQ (website, map), and be forewarned, says Tamara, that the place is a joint, not a BBQ boutique. Because Buffalonians always do this when they travel, be assured that you can taste test the local variations on our most famous delicacy, the chicken wing. In truth, the clearest evidence of our cultural influence lies in the popularity of something called "Hot Chicken" and fans of Buffalo wings will want to evaluate it. "There are graduated degrees of pain available," says my brother Chris, "and the most popular purveyor of the art form is Mr. Boo's Hot Chicken" (related website, map) which, being in Donelson, is a perfect place to eat if you're out visiting the Hermitage. As for more orthodox attempts at reproducing our cuisine, apparently Murfreesboro's Slick Pig entry (about 30 miles from Nashville) is pretty competitive. Wash 'em down with Yazoo, the local brew. While you're in the 'Boro, drive past my nieces' high school, or visit the Stones River National Battlefield (website, map), if you can stand the depressing site of acres and acres of dead adolescents. On the way back from the 'Boro, work off those wings with a visit to the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere (website, map). The meerkats are uproariously funny, and the bamboo groves quite beautiful. Hot tip: if you belong to the Buffalo Zoo and present your card, Grassmere honors your membership and admission privileges. Cool, eh?

Civil War cannon  Civil War cemetery   Ocelot?  Tiger  Meerkats

Identifying traditional food characteristic of Middle Tennessee is not an exact science. Guilt and denial diminish the American consciousness of the Native American (Wikipedia article) and African influence (Wikipedia article) on our cuisine and our culture generally, in my opinion. Whoever deserves the thanks, and the thanks are well deserved, there are certain foods that you eat growing up in Nashville, and then spend the rest of your life explaining after you move away (Wikipedia "Cuisine of the Southern United States" article). My favorite was a meat prepared locally and known as spiced round (related documentation, historical information, approximate recipe), served at Christmas time. It was my first encounter with larded meat, and I was powerful glad to have been told in Nashville, rather than have to ask in Paris, how in the world an animal gets white cubes of fat running through its muscles. A staple of our lunchboxes was the pimento cheese sandwich (approximate recipes, contest results), and Mrs. Grissom's was the label we bought from the local Kroger Store or A&P. Country ham and red eye gravy (related website), served with grits, are popular for breakfast on special occasions, but the ham was too salty for our taste, and possibly too expensive. Sunday mornings for us meant bacon and eggs, toast, orange juice, and Krispy Kreme donuts (Wikipedia article), which we often sold during fund-raisers for Holy Rosary School. Pork was probably the meat we ate most, and it figured not only as the main dish, but also as the flavoring for the greens (spinach, turnip greens, collard greens), as well as for the frequently served green beans. (Visitors accustomed to crisp, crunchy green beans tend to turn up their noses at the Southern version, but both versions are quite delicious.) When we had cornbread (Wikipedia article), it was made in cast iron molds shaped into ears of corn, and unlike the "hushpuppy" variations you find on the Carolina coast, it was not full of sugar. Nor did we add noticeable amounds of sugar to cole slaw (Wikipedia article), which might as well be sold in the dessert aisle these days, and which we used to eat with barbecue (Wikipedia article). Biscuits are another popular bread. Something we never ate, but which is ostensibly a staple of Southern food, is poke salad (Wikipedia article). Dessert was likely to be a blackberry or peach cobbler (scroll down to "Grandma's" for the best approximation) in the summer, and my mother made the best ones I've ever tasted. She also excelled at fried chicken (Wikipedia article) and pot roast (Wikipedia article), to which she always added a little coffee (red eye gravy influence?).

Horse apple, AKA Osage Orange, Maclura pomifera  

I'm not qualified to inventory the flora and fauna of the Middle Tennessee area, but there are some species you just don't encounter once you move up north. One is a tree which produces large fruit we called "horse apples," the Osage Orange, Maclura pomifera (website). There is also the Sweetgum tree, Liquidambar styraciflua (website), whose spiked nuts we used to spray-paint gold and silver and hang on our Christmas tree. Another creature I've never seen up north (luckily for the north, I've found out) is the Bagworm, Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis (related website), which seems to camouflage its cocoon with pieces of the leaves. Around the western edge of the city, and perhaps elsewhere, you can catch sight of flocks of Wild turkeys, Meleagris gallopavo (Wikipedia article, photo). You can't miss the fantastic Magnolia trees, Magnolia grandiflora (Wikipedia article, photo) which are tallish with large, smooth leaves and lush white blossoms, not short with pink blossoms, as they are up north. You'll also see the Tulip poplar, Liriodendron tulipifera (Wikipedia article, photo), which is Tennessee's state tree. Our state bird is the Mockingbird, Mimus polyglottos (Wikipedia article, video with singing). Out at Camp Marymount, we would always hear the Whippoorwill, Caprimulgus vociferus (Wikipedia article and linked sound file), and be thrilled when the Bobwhite, Colinus virginianus (Wikipedia article, photo) would answer our calls, though whether we fooled them, or they were messin with us, we never knew.

Bagworm

Buffalonians travelling in Nashville should always proudly remember the two qualities for which we have earned the respect of the nation. Should it happen that, considering Nashville's superior local government, cordial race relations, vibrant downtown scene, creative use of the waterfront, and diversified economic strength, you feel like an under-achiever, pour yourself a Genny's and cue up this footage of one explorer's brave foray out into what passes for snow down in Nashville. Ha, ha! Look how slowly he walks! He might have a tan, but he clearly lacks winter fortitude! And Buffalonians, never let pass any occasion to demonstrate our other most endearing quality, our excellent memory. Remind Nashvillians that when Titans tight end Frank Wycheck forward lateraled that kick-off to Kevin Dyson in the final 16 seconds of the 2000 AFC playoff so-called Music City Miracle game (Wikipedia article), we was robbed. Don't let anybody down there tell you different. If you're in a feisty mood, assert that if we had gone on to play the Rams in the Super Bowl, we woulda won it, unlike the team that went (Wikipedia article).

The Nashville equivalent of ARTVOICE (though perhaps preferable, as it lacks the strident "Chronicles" series) is The Nashville Scene. The Scene does an annual "Best of" article (scroll down to "Best Metro Council Member") and still sometimes manages to be disarmingly funny in the YASNI (You Are So Nashville If) contest.

For a wealth of other Nashville destinations, check out Patricia Bates's excellent Suggested itineraries for visiting Nashville. I hope these suggestions will keep you busy. I'm getting homesick just writing this up, so party for me too.



The preceding suggestions are offered by the following members of the Jameson family, listed in descending order of liability: Maureen Jameson, Tamara Hart Jameson, Chris Jameson, and Kevin Jameson. The people responsible for our being Nashvillians in the first place, and enthusiastic Nashvillians, are of course Bill and Ann Rita Jameson. Map photo at top courtesy of Google Maps.




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