Country music is inconceivable without the guitar, and earlier this past summer on this blog, I chronicled the history of the guitar as displayed at the Frist Museum downtown in Nashville, and you can access that by typing Frist museum into the search engine for this blog. Here in this last post I want to show some of the guitars left to the Ryman as museum pieces. These include Gibsons, Gretches, Fenders, Martins, and so much more. Or artists wanted... Read more
We would be remiss, not to return to the fact that the Ryman, was and continues to be the real heart and cathedral of country music, so naturally country artists, including crossover artists leave their stuff, their guitars, and clothes and bling to the Ryman as a museum. And the Ryman erects statues to some of their heroes, like Charley Pride, a black man who helped break the color barrier in country music. Here’s Ricky Scaggs and Travis Tritt trying... Read more
The Ryman is in fact surrounded by honky tonk bars, and is near to the Country Music Hall of Fame as well (there is also a song writers hall of fame in Nashville). Maybe the most famous of these bars is Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, and you can probably figure out that Tootsie was a piece of work. Nevertheless, she gave all sorts of country musicians a break that they needed, because record company scouts would camp out there and then... Read more
When the mid 60s rolled around, what had previously been a trickle, became a steady stream of soul and rock artists began to play at the Ryman until it closed in 1974. But then after it reopened thanks to folks like Emmy Lou Harris, who campaigned to save the Ryman, suddenly a flood of rock acts wanted to play there. It reopened in 1994. Here are some of the posters from that whole phenomenon. There is even now a rock... Read more
What sort of venue was the Ryman? Well it was a 19th century church and its acoustics were about what you’d expect with a flat B board ceiling. Without a doubt, with a hot packed crowd soaking up the sound, electric guitars would need amplification which in turn meant microphones for the singer to be heard over the amps. For a while in the 40s and 50s country and bluegrass were almost the only acts playing here… until Elvis, and... Read more
The sheer number of famous persons and musicians who graced the stage of the Ryman until it closed in 1974, was saved from the wrecking ball, and reopened as a tourist attraction and smaller concert venue is simply staggering here are some of the famous faces who were hired by Mrs. Naff until she retired in 1955. And there were many more. Musically, the 1940s were important because the Grand Ole Opry moved the the Ryman and... Read more
The story of the Ryman auditorium is itself fascinating, never mind all the famous musicians, entertainers, politicians magicians and more trapsed onto the stage of that cathedral, first of Gospel preaching and then later of country and bluegrass music, and even later of rock n’ roll. Today its in the middle of downtown Nashville, but it wasn’t always so. It began as the Union Gospel Tabernacle with the Rev. Sam Jones as its stem-winding preacher. But in fact the tabernacle... Read more
blog: http://www.allanbevere.com/2023/02/the-wesleyan-way-revival-real-or.html Read more
There were some pleasant surprises of acts I was not very familiar with, like Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes—a really bluesy singer… Or Aloe Blacc, who I really like as an R+B and soul singer….. I also really liked Hozier, another Irish artist, who looked like Jesus and not accidentally, his bit hit is Take Me to Church…. Also excellent was Babyface, primarily known as a producer and songwriter for other artists like Boys to Men, but he was excellent... Read more
For my money the best, and most surprising of the older headliner acts was Blondie, who I had never seen live. She’s 76 and still rocking hard…. amazing! Their video graphics were good, this one was when they were playing heart of glass. But also excellent were headliners like Train, as Pat Moynahan has still got a great voice, and besides their big hits like Soul Sister and Drops of Jupiter, they did some excellent covers of Steve Miller’s Space... Read more
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