Nashville Saturday – Frist, Hall of Fame, & Greg Trooper

Art! The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is Nashville’s art museum – the building is the old WPA post office building, with the first floor showcasing all the old art deco designs, tables, and panels explaining the building’s history and transformation. Upstairs were 4 main exhibits – a contemporary exhibit of Lane York’s bright vinyl political commentary designs, surprisingly graphic etchings of the horrors of war and famine by Goya, and the main exhibit of Western Artists and the Lure of Japan, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. The Lure of Japan exhibit showed how Japanese art and landscapes influenced major impressionists from Monet to Van Gogh – and the exhibit was created by Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts! No wonder so many pieces were familiar – is this how the MFA supplements its revenue, by loaning out its collection? Sorry, no photos inside the galleries.

Click any photo to enlarge.

The Frist

post office/museum

post office/museum hallway

outside art

Strolling the streets on a rainy day – doesn’t stop the bicycle-bar drinking, or the indoor bar hollerin’ and swollerin’:

pedal tavern!

Music History! Toured the Country Music Hall of Fame next. Lots of history. Much like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – instruments, costumes, cars, some film, some audio. Would have loved listening stations, like the Rock Hall has, where you could just put on headphones and hear any song by any inductee, but the Country Hall isn’t as interactive.

fancy old mandolin

Jimmie Rogers’ guitar

Patsy Cline

seriously?

Elvis’ gold piano

Gram Parsons

reference library stacks

Dixie Chicks

“will the circle be unbroken…”

Then off to The Basement to hear my 2nd favorite Jersey-boy singer-songwriter, Greg Trooper. Pizza in the car. Great show with some old pals from his Nashville days in the room. Told a story about his buddy Garry W. Tallent, bass-player for the Boss, who told Greg how to wear a wrist-watch so you can check the time while playing, without looking like you’re checking your watch. Jokes about “c’mon, Bruce, skip “Rosalita” – we been playing for 4 hours already!” Greg was in great voice, as usual – and he did “Time for Love!” Any chance you get, go see him, and buy his albums!

Greg Trooper

Back to the hotel for a 3:30 am wake-up-call to catch our 6:00 am flight Sunday.