From: French Lick, IN
To: Nashville, TN; Somerset, KY
Miles today: 202, 204
Total miles: 17184
From French Lick I went almost strait south through the
Hoosier National Forest (IN 145 and IN 37, mostly), which was a beautiful
ride. There were many exposed limestone
outcroppings, mostly roadcuts, and I stopped at a couple of them to see what
kind of fossils, if any, they might contain.
I found some nice crinoids, mostly stems but one partial crown, and had
a lot of fun looking.
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| I love road cuts when the rocks have fossils! |
I arrived in Tell City on the north side of the Ohio
River, and drove around the town to try to catch a glimpse of it. No luck; there is a large barrier/wall that
presumably serves as a levee that separates the entire town from the
river. So I got back on the road and
crossed the two-lane bridge into Kentucky (KY 69). The area in this region, both north and south
of the river, are very hilly; quite a contrast to the rolling plains of central
Illinois and Indiana.
Well, the storms that I had managed to avoid for the past
day and a half caught up with me. It rained very hard for about 45 minutes, with
lots of lightening, and I pulled over to wait out the worst of it; it was
difficult to see. Two different people in vehicles, both with those Kentucky
accents and one with a few missing teeth, stopped and asked me if I needed help
or to get out of the rain. I thanked
them both kindly and declined, but I continue to marvel at the goodness in
people as individuals, if not always in voting blocks.
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| Storm front, west Kentucky. It was so well defined that I thought it was a gigantic mountain for a while. |
The rain continued at a lighter pace for the rest of the
afternoon, and when KY 69 crossed both KY 9007 (the William H. Natcher Parkway)
and US 231, I opted for the larger one with divided highway and two lanes in
each direction, and hung out in the right lane.
I took the bypass around Bowling Green and then picked up I-65 south to
Nashville, where I would spend the night. I have never been to Nashville, so earlier
that day I did what all tourists are supposed to do: bought a ticket to the
Grand Ole Opry, booking a room in one of the many motels nearby. It finally stopped raining about the time I
pulled into the motel.
I have never been a big fan of Country Music, and seeing
the show at the Grand Ole Opry did not really change that. But it was really great. For those who don’t know (which included me,
up until a day or two ago), one does not see a singer or band at the Grand Ole
Opry; it is a sort-of Country sampler, with eight different acts – each of
which gets exactly three songs. (This
was a Wednesday night; the format is a bit longer on Fridays and
Saturdays.) There are some old folks who
sing songs from their primes back in the sixties, some current stars, and some
new up-and-comers. The eight acts I saw were: Bill Anderson; Holly Williams [daughter
of Hank Williams Jr and thus granddaughter of you-know-who]; Del McCoury Band;
Lorrie Morgan; Wade Hayes; The Quebe Sisters (reminded me of the Andrews
Sisters); Drake White, and Mel Tillis. I
had not heard of any of them (although I confess I should have known Mel
Tillis), and I did not know any of the songs except “Wichita Lineman.
What impressed me most about the performance was: the business
model. One key concept, which goes back 70 years, is that this is a radio show –
starting back when radio was new, and continuing now on Sirius XM. If you got on the show as a guest, it helped
your career. The second key concept is the idea of musician membership. If nominated, you could become a semi-regular
on the radio shows, which would keep you in the spotlight even if you hadn’t
had a hit in a while. However, in order
to become a member, the artist must agree to do a certain number of performances
(three songs only!) per year, something like 20 or 30. Grand Ole Opry thus becomes a hybrid of Las
Vegas, Saturday Night Live, and A Prairie Home Companion. Importantly, by deciding who gets offered
membership (and who gets invited to play as a guest), the management gets
something over the genre of Country Music that I don’t think any other genre
has: Configuration Control. OK, we’ll
allow those “longhair” electric guitars and even occasional drums, but there
will be none of this “new wave” or “punk” or “alternative” stuff. Very impressive, to my mind.
Here is another thing.
The requirement for “members” to play 20 + nights a year in Nashville
means that it becomes advantageous to live there, which in turn makes it an
attractive place to come for other aspiring musicians looking to work as
session players. This, in turn, makes it
an attractive place for singer-songwriters to come, since lots of session
musicians are already there to help you record your songs. Thus, I suspect, Nashville came to be the
center of the Country Music Universe, rather than Memphis, or Atlanta, or New
York, or Los Angeles.
Not all musicians like this; I remember that Waylon and
Willie and Merle were “outlaws,” not because they sang songs about Billy the
Kid, but because they did not like being constrained by the Nashville sound and
wouldn’t cooperate. I don’t know how
connected the Grand Ole Opry is to the rest of the Nashville music business, but
I remember the Indigo Girls singing the line “I sing what I still own” in their
song “Nashville.”
One more thing: I believe that every single member of the
audience was from out of town. My evidence for this is that one of the
performers asked “Who here is from Nashville?” and got dead silence for a
reply. This probably explains a couple
other things. One performer made a big
point out of wishing to thank every single member of the Armed Forces for their
Service to America – and got only polite applause instead of the roar I think
he was expecting. It might have been the
same guy who earlier said “I have a real problem with the way this country is
headed” – and got a puzzled, half-hearted, “what, specifically, do you mean?”
kind of reaction to what I guess he thought was red meat. Not their usual audience. All in all, a fascinating evening; I am very
glad I went.
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| Left: Outside, before the show. Right. Inside, with the giant TV in the Barn as the stage backdrop. That's Mel Tillis. |
Thursday (August 6) it basically rained all day. I took I-40 instead of US-70 east, and then
the still-large TN 111 northeast to the border with Kentucky. Once across the
border, I took US 27 – a very nice two-laner – to Russell Springs, and then
KY80 east to the town of Somerset, where I am now. I am in that part of Somerset that is all
motels and fast food joints, and with all the rain I didn’t get to see much of
the surrounding scenery. But the
temperature was nice, in the high 70’s, good for riding even when you’re wet (as
I eventually became). I’m not a big fan
of wet socks.
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| Typical view from today. Central Tennessee. |
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