By noon-thirty on Thursday, Styx, Terry and I found ourselves downtown on 2nd street, which is home to some of Nashville's most legendary venues, like the Ryman and Tootsie's, which is located just across the alley from the Ryman. Tootsie's is where people like Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Roger Miller hung out before, during and after playing across the street at the Ryman.
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| The Legendary Tootsies |
In Nashville, you can
find live music being played pretty much any time of day. At places like Honkey
Tonk Central, which has stages on three different floors, the bands
start at 10:30 AM. Now whether they're any good or not, that's a different
story.
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| Not so legendary Honkey Tonk Central |
Most of the afternoon drinking damage was done at a
place called Roberts Western Wear. They had a
great house band that played the more traditional style of country music. Hours of
drinking beer now gave way to crown on the rocks, and the first of what would
become a bad habit over the next few days: Fireball shots.
Drinking
a fireball shot is like getting sexually violated by a smoldering candy cane
while gulping Scope…there’s just nothing right about it.
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| Roberts Western Wear |
About
5:00, we headed over to 16th avenue so Styx could see Music Row. As you
can see from the guitar photos, blood alcohol levels were far exceeding
maturity at this point...and would only get worse.
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| Styx outside of RCA Studio's on Music Row |
But the highlight of the day came that night
at a place called the Blue Bird Cafe.
The Blue Bird Cafe, is a small Nashville music cafe that opened in 1982. The
club has become famous over the years for what is known as Writer’s
Night or Writer’s In the Round. This is where 4 well-known,
accomplished songwriters sit in the center of the room and take turns telling
stories and playing the songs/hits that they’ve written over theyears. What
makes it special for those in attendance is the intimacy of the venue. Even if
you’re sitting at the worst table in the place, you’ll still be less than 40
feet from the circle of artists. www.bluebirdcafe.com
My sister is friends with
Chris Wallin, an extremely talented songwriter who has written numerous top hits for some big
named artists like Montgomery Gentry, Kenny Chesney and Trace Adkins.
When Laura saw that Chris was playing In
the Round that night at the
Bluebird, she called him and he was generous enough to reserve us a front row
table. (www.chriswallin.com)
Because of
the close proximity and intimacy discussed above, there is a certain patron
protocol that is understood and adhered to when attending the Bluebird
Café. I’ve been to the Bluebird numerous times, and Terry’s been twice as
many times as I have. But since Styx was a Bluebird virgin…and since all three
of us were frat-party, shit-faced, Charlie Sheen drunk…Laura decided it might
be a good idea to give us the “Please don’t act like a moron speech.”
Loosely
translated, the moron speech goes something like this:(1) “Remember,
conversations are highly frowned upon inside the Bluebird…that means no
cracking jokes, no heckling the artist, no laughing at the expense of
others…and under no circumstances are you to yell out “Free Bird” if one
of the writers is acknowledging request (2) Getting up from our table should be
for bathroom emergencies only. It ceases to be an emergency, if on the way to
the bathroom, you stop off at the bar for a Fireball shot…And most importantly
(3) turn off your cell
phones. If I see you texting, or God forbid, should I hear a peep
from your phone, I will f-ing kill you right there on the spot.”
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| (L to R) Peyton Smith, Buddy Cannon & Chris Wallin (not pictured) Marla Cannon I am sitting directly behind Peyton, close enough he can probably smell the Fireball |
The other writers who joined Chris Wallin, were also big names. There was Buddy Cannon, who currently produces Kenny Chesney and has written several big hits, including “Give it Away” a song George Strait took to #1 in 2006. There was also Marla Cannon, Buddy’s daughter, whose song credits include the Rodney Atkins hit “Still Cleanin’ this Gun.” But it was a 15 year old kid named Peyton Smith, who was sitting about 24” in front of me, who absolutely stole the show. This kid is an incredible singer, fabulous guitar player and extremely talented writer. After watching this kid, Styx and I have pretty much decided that we were probably witnessing the future of country music.
And then it happened....
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