By
way of explanation – until now, I’d never been to the States. I’ve grown up
listening to the music that was born here, I’ve grown up listening to music inspired by same. But I’ve never
actually been able to get over here to sample it for myself.
Of
course, thanks to the strong festival scene at home, I’ve seen a myriad acts
from the US who themselves grew up listening to, and playing, the music of
America – blues, jazz, bluegrass and country – but getting to the source has
been uppermost on my mind ever since I started working at Rhythms, back in the early 2000s, doing things behind the scenes
for Brian Wise.
He’d
come back from New Orleans’ Jazz Fest, Austin’s ACL festival, a host of others,
with stories I could only dream of. I almost got it together enough to head
over in 2006, but Hurricane Katrina happened, and so that opportunity passed
on. Until now, when my wife Claire and I made it a priority, and so headed over
for five weeks to get amongst it, so to speak.
As
such, what follows in four installments, are my thoughts and experiences on the
four major music cities in the American south, beginning with the Live Music
Capital of the World, Austin, Texas.
***
 |
| Salt Lick BBQ Pit |
Austin
is a hell of a town. Hot and flat, it sprawls over a vast area towards the
eastern border of the state, an hours flight west of Houston. For a long time,
it’s been known as a place where you can find live music any night of the week,
a place overflowing with country talent, dark and dingy honky tonks, Tex Mex
food by the truckload, dusty cowboy boots Texas Two-Stepping around polished
concrete dance floors.
It’s
also known for its BBQ, and of course, we’re not talking the kind of BBQ we
know here at home – throw a steak and a few snags on the barbie – but the slow
smoked kind of BBQ… ribs, brisket, pulled pork and chicken; add in some ‘slaw,
potato salad and beans, and you’ve got yourself a hell of a meal.
Staying
with family, who have been living in Austin for a year or so and who know where
to look, we head to the Salt Lick BBQ,
about half an hour out of town. It’s on a big property which also has a tired
looking vineyard on it, has a huge outdoor area where one can sit and indulge
while listening to some music, set up over in the corner. You get out of the
car in the dusty parking lot and you get hit by the smell straight up.
We
get a mixed platter – brisket done three ways, pork ribs, sausage. The potato
salad and ‘slaw are expected and just added onto the side, along with huge
chunks of soft, white bread. You sit down and they plonk big styrofoam cups of
ice water down on the table, which you need, and big tubs of house BBQ sauce.
It’s an experience.
The
lean brisket I don’t really care for – you need the fat on there to really get
the flavour. The ribs are great though, the beer is cold, and despite the fact
the guy in the corner with the guitar is playing pop covers, it’s a place I’d
definitely recommend.
 |
| Stubb's Gospel Brunch |
A
few days later, we head a bit further south to stay with some friends in
Lockhart. To be honest, Lockhart isn’t a place I’d recommend visiting, there’s
not a lot going on, but it’s a town that has two things going for it – Black’s BBQ, and Mario’s Tacos. Blacks is a non-descript building in the downtown
area that smokes the best brisket you’ll ever have. I get around the brisket
sandwich, and as I write this, four weeks later, it is indeed the best BBQ I’ve
had all trip. Cheap too.
As
for Mario’s, Mario is a tiny Mexican guy with silver teeth who operates out of
a clapped out old truck parked in the lot next to the local servo. He doesn’t
speak any English, doesn’t follow any hygiene rules, but what he does do is
make the best breakfast taco you’ve ever had in your life, for a dollar
twenty-five. They’re pretty small and I could have eaten three, but I had one
and I can still remember the taste. The green spicy sauce as an accompaniment
is a must – great stuff.
A
couple of nights before this, we’d hit La
Caribe, a genuine Tex Mex joint on the northern edge of Austin. It looks
like a bunker from the outside, and the ambience inside leaves a bit to be
desired (fluro lighting, neon beer signs adorning every available inch of wall
space), but their food is top notch. They also have margaritas which have a
reputation for being the strongest in Austin – their slogan is that you can’t
send them back. The waitress even warns you of this as you order. We order
anyway, a good time is had by all.
In
Austin on a Sunday? Get yourself down to the Stubbs Gospel Breakfast. Stubbs is an institution in Austin, a
legendary music venue, and on Sunday mornings (you need to book), they host a
massive buffet breakfast, while a top shelf gospel band hits top gear on the
stage downstairs. I fill my plate with bacon, catfish, brisket and beans and
tap my feet to the tunes channeling up the stairs. Unlimited coffee refills
wash it all down – this is a must do.
As
far as the music itself goes, we sample the gamut. I head down to Zilker Park
for the second weekend of the Austin
City Limits Festival (which you can read about here), three days I barely
survive, mainly because of the heat – autumn hasn’t yet arrived in Texas. The
absolute highlight for me however, came on our second night in town, courtesy
of the world famous Broken Spoke.
The
Spoke is a genuine tonk. It used to stand on its own on the outer edge of town,
but as Austin has grown, at the whim of developers, it’s now sandwiched between
two giant apartment blocks on South Lamar Boulevard, which is a shame, but
which hasn’t done a damn thing to dilute its ethos, its appeal, its downright
authenticity. It looks like it’ll fall down at any second, it smells odd and
it’s grotty as hell, but it is one of the best music venues I’ve ever been to
in my life.
We
head in early to take advantage of the Texas Two-Step lesson, which runs for an
hour and is hosted by a rough-as-guts Texan woman who ain’t taking no shit, but
who guides us novices through our paces, and after an hour, we’re steppin’
around like we’ve been doing it for years (slight exaggeration). That done,
Austin legend James Hand gets up with his band and the dancefloor is swamped.
They play real country music, yee-haw, and the packed house loves it. This is
just a downhome, red-dirt kinda place, an institution, the ‘last true dance
hall in Texas’, a must for anyone with even a passing love of anything remotely
linked to the Lone Star State.
Also
recommended is the Continental Club
on South Congress (a great little strip with a stack of restaurants, cafes,
vintage stores and clubs), which plays anything from country to rock ‘n’ roll
and everything in between. We catch a young band as we wander through one
night, their name escapes me, but I’m reliably told by the guy on the door,
that the old guy sitting in with them is a Grammy-winning pedal steel
guitarist, who’s name I don’t catch. He’s good. The young guys, not so much.
Over
at ABGBs (Austin Beer Garden
Brewery), we sip on a myriad of their homemade brews and catch a set from a
local band called Girl Pilot, who infuse a good dose of well-written pop music
into the country mold, a trio who I imagine would slay it on Triple J. Good
stuff, something a little different.
A
mate of mine, CR Humphrey of Old Gray Mule fame, who lives down in Lockhart,
takes us out one night (including to La Caribe), and we end up at King Bees on the rough east side of town
(best not to walk around there by yourself after dark…), where we catch about
half of The Little Jimmy Reed Band, who take a few songs to warm up but then
settle in to a blistering set of Chicago-influenced blues. It’s good and loud,
the Lone Star beer is two dollars and all is well. Austin is a fine town, you
certainly need more than a week or so to fully explore.
Tune
in to the next installment, New Orleans…
***
New Orleans, Louisiana
New
Orleans is a city of stark juxtaposition. Home to the bawdy and loose French
Quarter, where good-time bad behaviour is merely a part of the make up, step
outside the European styled buildings aligning narrow streets, and you find
neighbourhoods the complete antithesis.
Wide,
flat roads and tired looking houses, run down cars and shops with boarded
windows. It’s confronting in many respects, and seems like a different city
from a different time, compared to the more gentrified areas scattered about
the Big Easy, one of America’s most famous towns.
New
Orleans has a pride in itself though, and not the big and loud pride you’ll
find in Texas, but an understated pride. It’s a feeling in the air,
unmistakable – the city has suffered its fair share of injustices, and yet its
people soldier on, determined to keep living in a city known for living like no
other.
We’re
there for four nights, the first two spent in a room in a small house in the
Faubourg Marigny district, slightly east of the Quarter, just over the
Mississippi River from Algiers Point. It’s an ‘up and coming area’, home to a
growing population of bohemians and artists and amongst the auto shops and fast
food joints, we find organic supermarkets, yoga studios and the booming St. Roch Market, a small building
boasting a myriad artisan food stalls and bars. We’re there for lunch one day,
I have the BBQ’d pork belly Po’ Boy, an upscale version of a Louisiana classic.
We’re
only a five minute walk from the top of Frenchmen Street, and this is where New
Orleans comes into its own. Just outside the Quarter, Frenchmen’s, in
comparison to Bourbon Street, is a strip lined with bar upon bar where the
focus is squarely on the music, as opposed to the drink. Sure, in any bar on
Frenchmen you can tip your beer into a plastic go-cup and wander down to the
next joint as you can on Bourbon, but the crowd here is a music crowd and so
while loud and loose, it’s fun and friendly, conducive to good times, good
music, good people.
We
stop in at The Spotted Cat and watch
Andy Forest blow some harp in between sips from a large cup of Maker’s Mark. We
stroll south and sit outside Bamboulas
where Chance Bushman’s Rhythm Stompers have everyone in thrall as they knock
back five dollar margaritas. The band play a heady mix of rag-time blues and
trad jazz, a fine way to ease into a Friday evening.
We
wander further down Frenchmen onto Decatur Street, which leads into the Quarter
proper, and find ourselves in the divey Aunt
Tiki’s, a black hole of a bar open 24 hours a day, a clutch of regulars
sitting down the front, dank and dark, a truly beautiful place where I feel
completely at home, joking with the two bartenders (one of whom has had more to
drink than I), sipping on Jack Daniels with Budweiser chasers, just soaking up
a New Orleans Friday night.
We
head back to Frenchmen’s at some point and end up at Café Negril and dig on the funk and soul of Higher Heights before
calling it a night and heading home, marveling at a scene as alien as any we’d
ever seen. It’s a street where you can spend a lot of time, and so we’re here
the night after too, taking in as much music as possible, hopping from joint to
joint, not a bad one among the lot – Frenchmen Street has a lot going for it,
truly one of the best parts of New Orleans.
The
French Quarter itself is indeed something to see. One of the most highly
trafficked tourist spots in the world, it’s a place that never seems to stop.
We wander through at around lunchtime and the place is heaving, people
everywhere, most carrying a drink of some variety (whether merely a beer in a
plastic cup, or a literal fishbowl of some questionable looking fluro liquid),
the party atmosphere almost a physical being.
Bourbon
in particular is happening, the smell of vomit and urine from the night before
still very much on the nose, hawkers from the myriad bars on the pavement out
the front, bands playing loud inside. We hurry through, not really our scene,
and find refuge in Jackson Square in Louis Armstrong Park, just north of the action, where we can sit on
the grass, read the plaques on the dozens of statues around the place, take it
easy in a city where you get the feeling things don’t slow down, ever.
The
second two nights in town, we stay at the Maison
Dupuy on the northern edge of the Quarter. Built on the site of America’s
first cotton press, it’s now a grand old dame of a hotel, a collection of five
buildings grouped around a pool and courtyard, an old time opulence about it
that makes it more endearing than high-end. We base ourselves there as we
explore the rest of the Quarter, including the historic Voodoo Museum, Café du Monde
and the Hotel Monteleone which has a revolving carousel bar and serves up audacious
cocktails and turns out to be a good spot to watch the more upscale Quarter clientele
and watch the LSU game on the televisions about the wood-paneled room.
We
spend our final day in town walking from the Quarter to the Garden district,
over Canal Street and through the CBD, through the arty Warehouse district
which opens up into one of the most genteel places in town, an area of big, old
houses sitting on verdant grounds, ancient oak trees lining the pavement, their
big old roots jutting through the concrete creating steps you have to navigate
with care.
Many
of the houses carry historic value, and it seems like we’re in another world,
one that boasts an easy wealth, a long history and a casual attitude, tucked
away from the grotesque action of the French Quarter, a quiet solitude. We
wander through Lafayette Cemetery Number
1 too, soaking up the history and enjoying the serenity.
Our
final night sees us at the rather impressive Royal Sonesta hotel on Bourbon, sitting in on The Tuxedo Jazz
Band’s set at the Irvine Mayfield’s Jazz
Playhouse. These cats know their way around everything jazz, and despite
the fact it’s a Monday night, they put their all into it, infusing it with a
carefree and fun vibe that has the growing crowd getting into it, call and
response, high-octane and velvet smooth. This is some real N’Awlins jazz, buy
some real N’Awlins players, truly a solid set and a fantastic end to
proceedings in The Big Easy, The Crescent City, N’Awlins, where the faint of
heart fear to tread, and the rest of us stagger out, sated and full.
Speaking
of full, it’d be remiss of me not to mention Gene’s Po’ Boys, where we stop on the way out of town. These are
the real deal, giant sandwiches on French bread full to overflowing with roast
beef, cheese and gravy. It’s a giant, sloppy mess and as I write this, around a
month later, it’s still one of the best things I ate, hands down.
Tune
in to the next installment, Memphis…
Samuel
J. Fell stayed at the Maison Dupuy courtesy of the New Orleans Convention &
Visitor’s Bureau and the Maison Dupuy. He was hosted at Irvine Mayfield’s Jazz
Playhouse by the New Orleans C&VB and the Royal Sonesta. Thanks to all
organisations for their help and hospitality.
***
I’ll
preface this piece by saying that because of a tight schedule, we only spent
two days in Memphis, which I can tell you isn’t nearly enough time to delve
into the incredible history this Tennessean city is custodian to.
The
birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll and soul music, and the conduit through which most
southern blues passed on its way north to places like Chicago, Memphis is
ground zero, truly a musical mecca, and a city which wears that tag with pride
upon its collective sleeve.
Basing
ourselves out of the upmarket Madison
Hotel in downtown (a rock ‘n’ roll haven in itself, having hosted a
plethora of touring acts from Radiohead to the Chili Peppers and all in between),
we used what little time we had to hit three Memphis-specific areas – BBQ,
museums and Beale Street. As one should.
Beale
Street is similar to New Orleans’ Bourbon in that it’s a party strip, lined
with a myriad bars and restaurants, all boasting live music and cheap beer – no
matter we were there mid-week, Beale Street caters for all comers, seven
nights, 365.
Proceedings
begin in the beer garden section of Kings
Palace Café where a family band – three brothers and a sister on vocals –
are encouraging all to write their requests on “the back of a twenty dollar
bill” and drop it in the bucket. Then they play it, their repertoire is
extensive, and although they lack punch on the quieter numbers, they cook on
the faster tunes.
From
there we head east, plastic go-cup in tow, and take a seat in the Blues Hall, which is the juke joint
section of the Rum Boogie Café.
Billed as the last juke on the street, the Hall is a long, narrow room that
essentially is as it sounds. We catch the McDaniel Band (all dressed in white
pants and red shirts), who lay down a blistering set of Chicago-influenced
blues, much to the delight of those wanting to dance – good stuff.
We
wind it down by stepping into the Rum Boogie proper and sit in the pavement
section and watch it all go by as The Lucky Losers pedal their suave brand of
soul/blues inside. Memphis’ NBA team, the Grizzlies, have a game just around
the corner at the FedEx Forum, and so foot traffic swells at around ten in the
evening before tapering off leaving just the mid-week revelers. Good for people
watching.
Earlier
that evening, it’d been all about BBQ. Memphis is renowned for it, and acting
on a hot tip, we headed down to Central
BBQ for dinner, an easy stroll down Sth Main Street. This place is an
institution, has won a slew of awards, and it’s easy to see why. We dig on the
pork plate, potato salad and slaw, green beans and big cans of Pabst. It’s
divine and I wish I had more stomachs so I could go back again and again.
Still
on food, and food other than BBQ, our first night in town we were hosted at Eighty3, the restaurant attached to the
Madison. I feel I must apologise to executive chef Max Hussey, who I’d met in
the lobby earlier in the day, because by this stage of our trip, all I wanted
was something simple and familiar and so I ordered steak frites. Most
unadventurous.
The
food was great though – the restaurant’s signature skillet cornbread, probably
the best scallops I’ve ever eaten, a 12 ounce prime ribeye and, on the advice
of the chef, deep-fried Oreo cookies and cream to finish it up. The lady behind
the bar accidentally poured someone else a Maker’s Mark which they didn’t want,
so she slung it over my way. They know how to look after a weary journo at the
Madison and Eighty3, no doubt.
Wednesday
day, prior to our Beale Street sojourn, was all about museums, and two in
particular – the Civil Rights Museum,
which is housed in and around the infamous Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther
King Jr was assassinated in 1968, and the Rock
‘n’ Soul Museum off Beale.
The
Civil Rights Museum, which essentially traces the history of the civil rights
movement from the 17th century through to today, is hands down the
most comprehensive and emotionally-charged museum I’ve ever been to. We were in
there for three and a half hours and only covered a little over half, such is
the depth it goes to, the history it covers.
It
hits hard too, we left emotionally drained, the utter horror, fear and complete
disregard for humanity reverberating in our minds – from slavery to segregation,
Jim Crow, the Freedom Riders, marches to Selma and Montgomery, it’s incredible
and more than a little sad. And yet there’s triumph in there too – the Civil
Rights Museum covers it all, I will certainly be back to finish it off.
We
head from there to Rock ‘n’ Soul, which by comparison seems lacklustre. It’s
not, but perhaps don’t go and walk through straight after the Civil Rights. It
does cover a lot of ground though, from the blues players heading north in the
early part of the 20th century, the bustle of Beale Street at the
time where players came to ‘make it’ (including Mr BB King), to the birth of
soul and rock ‘n’ roll over at Sun Studios. It’s only a small museum, but it
does a good job of keeping things precise, giving you a nice overview from which
you can then explore in more depth by heading to Sun or Stax or one of the many
other musical museums in town.
Speaking
of the former, on our way out of town on the Thursday morning, we make the
detour and stop in at Sam Phillips’ Sun
Studios, a little way out of downtown, along Union Avenue. Writing this a
couple of weeks later, at the end of a five week trip through the deep south, I
can say that Sun was my favourite place of all.
It
looks like nothing, from the inside and out. A small, non-descript building
with a little diner / gift shop in the front, a tiny museum upstairs and a
recording studio out the back, it could just be some dive somewhere. It looks
old, tired, bland, particularly the studio.
But
it’s not. It throbs with an intensity. It positively shakes with history. It
leaks it all over you.
I
stand on the same black gaffa ‘x’ on the floor where Elvis stood when, in a
desperate last-ditch effort to get Phillips’ attention, he started strumming
Arthur Crudup’s ‘That’s Alright Mama’, in that fashion that essentially started
rock ‘n’ roll. I see the cigar burn on the lower E key on the piano, from Jerry
Lee Lewis’ cigar. There’s a giant photo on the wall of Elvis, Carl Perkins,
Lewis and Johnny Cash, all in the studio at the same time, just hanging out. It
happened just over there, on those nondescript plastic floor tiles, the same
ones that Phillips laid himself.
The
place is magic, pure magic.
And
so our short stay in Memphis comes to an end. There’s so much more to see in a
city that’s full to the brim with musical history, and I’ll definitely be back.
If you’re in any way partial to basically any music whatsoever, then I suggest
you do the same.
Tune
in for the final installment, Nashville.
Samuel
J. Fell stayed at the Madison Hotel courtesy of the Memphis Convention &
Visitor’s Bureau and the Madison Hotel. He was hosted at Eighty3 by the Memphis
C&VB and Eighty3. Passes to all museums were courtesy of the Memphis
C&VB and the respective museums. Thanks to all organisations for their help
and hospitality.
***
Having
spent a good deal of my younger adult years living in the hip and cool bustle
of Melbourne’s inner north, coupled with the fact that it doesn’t take much to
convince me to throw on my old cowboy boots and tap my leather-shod feet to
some tonkin’ country/blues, for me Nashville was like coming home.
We
based ourselves in East Nashville (thank you AirBnB), an area of town that over
the past five or six years has blossomed from a working class neighbourhood
into a tight-knit community of young families and single twenty-somethings,
renovated little cottages on tree-lined streets and, of course, a thriving
venue, restaurant, food truck and music scene.
It
should be noted that East Nashville is hip as hell. I felt on many occasions
over the five days we were there, trolling the bars and eateries, that my moustache
wasn’t twirly enough (or at all), my skinny jeans weren’t skinny enough, and at
35 with no kids, I was far too old. We dove right in, none the less.
Before
we got down to exploring however, there were a couple of bucket-list items
which needed ticking off, two things which stem from the same place, but which
couldn’t be further apart.
Our
first night in town we head twenty minutes out from downtown to the Bluebird Café, that songwriter’s mecca,
a tiny little place that for thirty-three years has acted as both a sounding
and spring board for countless singer-songwriters, something Nashville has in
abundance.
A
non-descript little place, located in a strip mall between two hair salons, the
Bluebird is an institution. It only seats a hundred people, and seven nights a
week presents an early and a late set. Tickets for the week’s shows go on sale
on the Monday morning, and most are sold out within the hour. People line up
outside a couple of hours or so before showtime, hoping to grab one of the last
few seats not sold online, or snap up any that have been reserved but that no
one has turned up to claim.
We
catch the early show, a Songwriters In The Row session, featuring four local
singer-songwriters – Jesse Terry, Michaela Anne, Alex Wong and Lizanne Knot –
each playing a song, passing the baton down the line. It’s a fascinating way to
assess music, each player exhibiting a different style, each player bringing
their own strengths and weaknesses to the table. It’s a listening room, so
people are quiet, respectful. This is where people get their start, and it’s
exciting to be in a room that holds so much history.
Speaking
of history, and in direct contrast to the Bluebird, our second night in town we
deck ourselves out in our most outlandish country-wear (including the dark
cherry red boots I bought from a second hand joint in Austin), and head to the country music hub of the universe, The Grand Ole Opry. Both the Bluebird
and the Opry are, fundamentally, about country music. But they could not
possibly be more different.
Where
the Bluebird is a quiet listening room, the Opry is big, bold, loud, brash,
AMERICA. It’s such a blatant change, we can’t help but sit through the show
with big grins plastered over our faces at the pure and un-ironic fanfare of it
all. It truly is an experience, one I can’t recommend highly enough, no matter
what strain of country music you’re into.
The
Grand Ole Opry, of course, began as a radio show in the mid-‘20s, which makes
it the longest running radio program in history. It gained popularity quickly
back then, becoming a four-hour program featuring any number of traditional
performers, moving in 1943 to the Ryman Auditorium, before settling at its
current home, The Grand Ole Opry House, in 1974. The House was seriously
flooded five years ago, but it’s been restored to its glittering best.
We’re
treated to a number of musical acts over the two hours, from the glitz and glam
of modern, contemporary country – The Willis Clan (a troupe of eleven brothers
and sisters who I believe were on America’s
Got Talent last year); John Rich; and Brad Paisley – to some serious old
school country talent from the likes of Jesse McReynolds and the Charlie
Daniels Band.
The
former group are fine at what they do, but are hardly my cup of tea. McReynolds
though, with his group behind him, huddled around the one mic playing the
sweetest bluegrass you’ll find anywhere replete with perfect vocal harmonies,
was astounding. As was Charlie Daniels and his band – man, their version of
‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ was incendiary, Daniels himself on fiddle, he
almost set it alight, went through at least two bows during the course of the
song – magical stuff.
The
biggest crowd response went to Paisley, this is the modern day Opry after all,
but as a whole, this was some serious entertainment, something you just don’t
see over here. We were taken backstage afterwards for a tour too, which is
recommended if you’re after the history of the place. We headed back to HQ and
sat out the back with a couple of beers to debrief – epic stuff indeed.
A
good deal of the rest of our stay in Music City was spent exploring both East Nashville
and The Gulch, an area just out of downtown that used to be an industrial hub,
but which has now been gentrified and is home to craft breweries, artisan
distilleries, quirky shops and a myriad music venues.
We
stayed well clear of Broadway, Nashville’s equivalent of Bourbon and Beale,
preferring instead the more downhome style East Nashville offers in spades.
There ain’t no problem finding good eats in Nashville – The Pharmacy on the edge of EN laid down some serious gourmet
burgers; Pomodoro some fine tapas
(fancy mac ‘n’ cheese, good stuff); and Mas
Tacos, man, you want good and quick Mexican in the mid-south, this is where
you go. Most of these places have a daily happy hour too, good for cheap
cocktails pre-dinner, along with any number of arty beers for a couple of
bucks. I’m not much of a craft beer man myself, preferring a working man’s brew
like Bud, Lone Star or Pabst (all basically as close to VB as I could get – I’m
a classy guy), but when in Rome…
And
of course, Nashville’s claim to culinary fame, hot chicken. And by hot, I mean
spicy. As we head out on the last day, we stop in at Pepperfire, which is perhaps the most aptly named place we
patronise all month. We decide it can’t be that hot and so get a serving of
chicken tenders extra-hot, potato salad and beans on the side.
Big
mistake – this was so hot, we couldn’t finish it. I tried hard, it tasted so
good. But I feared permanent damage to my taste buds, and so had to leave some
behind. Highly recommended, but note they don’t muck around with their spice
levels – I’m still sweating.
Music
venues, there’s a million of them. Just down from where we stay is the Five
Points area, a five-way intersection stemming off Woodland Street which offers
music in abundance. We have a beer at the Treehouse
one night, no music, but we strike gold our final night in town.
 |
| The Five Spot |
The Basement East, a little
further out from Five Points, looks like a bunker from the outside, but once
through the doors, while it is a bit cavern-like, has the best sound I’ve heard
all trip. We catch the last couple of songwriters showcasing their weekly spots
(The Danberrys and another whose name I couldn’t catch), before the Sunday Post
begins and it’s rock band time. We catch about five bands all up, for five
dollars, few cold brews, not a band place.
From
there, we stroll back Five-Pointsward and sidestep into The Five Spot. Now this place, with its sticky carpet, its dark
back-alley ambience, its cheap beer and smoky beer garden, is my idea of
heaven. The band playing the late slot are Heath Haynes and a rag-tag bunch of
musos and they specialise in tonkin’ country/blues with a healthy appreciation
for a rockabilly tangent – I’ve found my people.
We
while away our last hours in Music City toe-tappin’ and Bud-drinkin’,
reminiscing on all we’ve seen over the course of the past month. It wasn’t just
cities, we road-tripped from New Orleans through Cajun country, followed the
river up into Mississippi, stayed in Natchez, Jackson, Indianola, Clarksdale,
and from Nashville headed to the Smokys for a few days prior to heading home. I
can’t nominate a favourite place or part of the trip, but suffice to say, this
was a pilgrimage, a savage journey to the heart of the American music. It was
wild, it was free, it was untamed and loose and AMERICA. I’d recommend it to
anyone.
Samuel J. Fell
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