Nashville Cats
It’s been almost sixty years since John Sebastian of the Lovin’Spoonful penned the lyrics to his eighth Top 40 pop song Nashville Cats. Since then, Nashville has only become more central to the music world and it seems to be in evidence even on the plane flight from LaGuardia to the Nashville Airport. Almost every person on our short, small plane Embraer flight seemed to be a country music star except one. She must have booked too late to get a first class seat, but Martha Stewart, the 82 year old suburban lifestyle guru, was seated with her companion in the back of the bus. I thought it might have just been a good Martha Stewart look-alike, but when I turned on the TV last night I could see that it was the same person that was advertising Miracle Gro plant food, so I think it was really her. Such is the ongoing popularity of this Tennessee city where the pop icon who sticks out more than any is an obscure Country Music personality who wore a hat with a price tag dangling from it, Minnie Pearl. Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon Spent more than 50 years as the face of the Grand Ole Opry here in Nashville and became a household image on the 1960’s variety show Hee Haw that brought Country Music into the homes of every American. Minnie was not actually a musician, but rather a country comedienne who played on the softer and more humorous aspects of Southern culture.
Several months ago when my daughter Carolyn called me to ask what she should do for her daughter’s Spring Break, it occurred to me that I had no interest in participating in normal Spring Break shenanigans in some place like Florida or Cancun, and I suggested that we gather for a trip to see the Southern U.S., perhaps the one part of the country that I have spent the lest amount of time in. I have actually had a desire for some time to travel down the Natchez Trace for some reason. The truth is, I hate swamps and have this feeling that everywhere in the South are covered with Spanish Moss and is humid and uncomfortable. I think it is a thing that developed in me in growing up in the hot and humid tropics as a kid. Anyway, I suggested that we gather in Nashville and do a trip down the Natchez Trace and thus began our Spring Break trek which actually began yesterday with our flight to Nashville.
It so happens that I had to go to NYC yesterday, so I gathered up with Carolyn and my granddaughters Charlotte and Evelyn (two Southern Belle names to be sure) and flew down here to Nashville while Kim came in later in the evening from San Diego. The girls and I went to a local pub called Jaspers near our hotel because the rooftop restaurant of our quintessential Nashville hotel, the Graduate Hotel, was too bawdy and loud with Friday night partying. I should have realized something was going on in town this weekend given how many Bachelorette groups were on our flight. As we drove up to the Hotel entrance, one pink-clad group was already stumbling across the road with drinks already in hand. Everything about this hotel is pink. The lobby is pink. The elevator is pink. ANd our room is a study in pink-striped wallpaper and and a pink canopy-style four poster bed. As John Sebastian knew, “Nashville cats, play wild as mountain dew…Nashville cats, been playin’ since they’s babies.”
I have never really been a big country music fan, not that I don’t like it, but I guess I am just not a music aficionado of any genre. We may owe more to John Sebastian in bringing Country Music into the mainstream than we may realize. He said it best by declaring that, “Nashville cats, been playin’ since they’s babies…Nashville cats, get work before they’re two…Well, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty two Guitar pickers in Nashville and they can pick more notes than the number of ants on a Tennessee ant hill…Yeah, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty two guitar cases in Nashville, and any one that unpacks ‘is guitar could play twice as better than I will.”
Our visit, which was orchestrated jointly by Kim and Carolyn is focused on Country Music and heart-stopping southern food. Accordingly, today’s agenda is starting at the Pancake Pantry before going to the GooGoo Cluster factory. We will then go to the Country Music Hall of Fame and end our day at Martin’s Bar-B-Que for some good old southern ribs. Tomorrow we will go to the Grand Ole Opry’s Ryman Auditorium and the General Jackson Showboat, set on the Cumberland River that flows through town. We will end our stay here in Nashville with a visit to the Paula Dean Restaurant. Paula Dean was a TV personality chef who seemed to epitomize the South. She lives in Georgia, but I guess her southerness makes Nashville a perfect venue for one of her name brand restaurants.
From Nashville, we will actually drive down a bit of the Natchez Trace to the birthplace of Elvis Presley in Tupelo, Mississippi. That day trip is a nod to my wishes and then we will turn northeast to go find a Buc-ee’s truck stop cafe in northern Alabama, something Carolyn seems desperate to experience. From there we will go to Chattanooga to see the ChooChoo and finally hit our real goal for the week by going to Dollywood in Knoxville. I think that with all this good high cholesterol southern food this week, I will have had my fill of the South by the time I find my bench to sit on in Dollywood while Kim and the girls throw their stomachs into loop-d-loops on the Dollywood roller coasters.
Well, to end on a Lovin’ Spoonful note, “And I sure am glad I got a chance to say a word about the music and the mothers from Nashville. Nashville cats!”