If you love music then Nashville, Tennessee is the place for you. This is the Music Capital of America where songs like “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by Joan Baez, and “Lost Highway” by Bon Jovi were recorded. It is also one of the hottest travel destinations of 2013.

We check into a downtown hotel within walking distance of all the attractions and spend two days tapping our way from one honky-tonk to another, where talented young musicians perform, hoping to catch a break or the ear of a music producer. The music seems to go on around the clock with the largest concentration of bars on Broadway. And don’t worry about what to wear! Everyone but everyone, is wearing blue jeans, half with cowboy boots (which you can pick up at any number of boot shops along the street).

Some of the most popular honky-tonks are Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Robert’s Western World Bar and the Legends Corner where we run across Kinsey Rose, a talented young singer with a voice as silky as her long blond hair, performing classic country songs as well as her own compositions.  Great talent just waiting to be discovered!

More established performers can be found at BB King Blues Club or the Wildhorse Saloon a three-storied auditorium with a large area where you can learn to line dance and then join the raucous crowd on the floor. With a few exceptions, none of the bars, most of which are decorated with country and western memorabilia, have a cover charge and nobody pressures you to order drinks. You can sit and nurse your drink for as long as you like, listen to music or get up on the floor.

Straddling the Cumberland River, Nashville has been luring fiddlers, folk singers, and other musicians almost since its founding in the late 1700s. This is the home of Ryman Auditorium, considered by many to be “The Mother Church of Country Music,” where the acoustics are considered to be amongst the best in the country. Originally built by riverboat Captain Tom Ryman, it served as the Union Gospel Tabernacle until it became the Ryman auditorium after his death. Many of the church elements remain. The seats are wooden pews arranged in a semi-circle. Stained glass windows filter the light from outside. A large balcony, dubbed “The Confederate Gallery” sits above. According to our guide, in 1897, a group of Confederate veterans chose Nashville as the site for their reunion. So many people were expected that the balcony was added to the structure to fit them all in. Although the Ryman hosted numerous performers, including Ernesto Caruso, the great Italian tenor, it was country music that made it famous. In 1925 a local radio station, WSM, launched a weekly broadcast of country and western music that was aired from the Ryman. It became known as the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry continues to be staged live every week, making it America’s longest running radio show where every award-winning musician from Hank Williams to Carrie Underwood has performed. Today the Opry is broadcast from the Ryman Auditorium only in the winter; the rest of the year its home is a new Convention center about 20 minutes from downtown.

Down the street from the Ryman is the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, packed full of memorabilia that includes more than 800 stage costumes and 600 instruments. Across the road don’t miss Music City’s Walk of Fame with the names of numerous musicians etched in the concrete. If you can plan your visit well in advance to get tickets, check out the Bridgestone Arena where major sporting event stake place and the likes of Eric Clapton, Elton John and other perform. You don’t have to be a country and western music fan to enjoy Nashville and appreciate the vibrancy and electricity of the city. Put it on your bucket list.

IF YOU GO
You can either check the websites to see who is performing or just wander from one bar to another until you find something you like. If you get hungry, pop into Jack’s Barbecue for some ribs smothered in Jack’s own barbecue sauce (416 Broadway; Tel 615-254-5715).

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