World City Guide

Nashville is the self-styled Music City USA – with Dolly Parton, the Grand Ole Opry, Robert Altman’s Oscar-winning movie Nashville (1975) and the Country Music Hall of Fame. It may then come as a surprise to the first-time visitor to find a modern American city of stylishly designed skyscrapers and a healthy financial community embracing new commerce, publishing and other offshoots of the music industry. Although, of course, reflected in these skyscrapers are the bars where Hank Williams drank and where country singers still perform, in the hope of becoming the next Willie Nelson or Loretta Lynn.

Almost slap in the centre of Tennessee, Nashville is the booming city of the upper South. Its population is rapidly expanding as it attracts citizens from the surrounding states (such as Kentucky and Alabama), and even from New York and Los Angeles, to work in the music and wider entertainment business. The city has long attracted singers, of course, ever since the Grand Ole Opry started its weekly radio broadcast in 1925. Only established to rival Chicago’s ‘National Barn Dance’ radio show, it was so popular that today it certainly isn’t Chicago that springs to mind when we think of America’s ‘Country Capital’.

The city’s roots go back a long way. It was first home to bison and deer, which attracted the hunters who settled here – as archaeological finds have proven. In the late 18th century, the first non-Indians arrived, in the form of a few French fur trappers and traders, one of who was the famous Daniel Boone. Soon after, migrants from the Appalachians began to settle and provided the beginnings of a sizeable community until, in 1835, Nashville became the state capital.
Today, Downtown Nashville, where most of the best hotels and the nightlife are concentrated, is an area of only about eight blocks square. It is a mix of chic hotels, businesses and honky-tonks, where Nashvillians work and where tourists wander around looking for the authentic country experience. Music Row, which is actually the business heart of the country industry, is in midtown Nashville, southwest of Downtown. Out of the city, to the northeast, is the vast Opryland complex, from where the Grand Ole Opry is now broadcast and where country music museums and the Opryland Hotel all cluster.

The bulk of visitors choose to visit Nashville in the spring and autumn, wisely avoiding July and August, which can be hot and humid. Winter months are quite mild, with occasional snow flurries, although December to March are best avoided, as driving rain and wind can occur. June brings fans and stars together for the International Country Music Fan Fair. It is during an event such as this that Nashville most provides that which visitors come to see. People expect to see men in 10-gallon hats walking down the streets with guitars slung across their back and to meet country singers in Downtown bookstores and bars – and that is just what they get.

Other industries, such as new media, the healthcare services and the many venture capital companies, may well be hugely financially important (the major healthcare companies generate 10 times as much revenue as the entire tourist industry), but they are much less visible. Without the country music, who would know the name of Nashville? Much of the boom in the boomtown comes from ancillary music industries, such as publishing, management, TV and recording studios. So as long as country music survives, then Nashville surely will thrive.