Country music is perpetually in contention with itself. All down the years we see glamour juxtaposed with grit; we encounter revivalists of a hallowed tradition reacting to popularisers who seek new audiences by adulterating the mix with pop. We hear the self-same voices singing in celebration of faith and in exhortation to sin. Every love song is matched by a tale of cheating hearts.
It’s these permanent tensions that keep country vital. And tension, too, gives life to the genre’s home – Nashville, Tennessee – and one of its most enduring subjects, whiskey. In the streets of Nashville, and in the barrel houses of Jack Daniel’s, a short drive south in Lynchburg, we can witness other attempts to creatively accommodate proprietary and hedonism, tradition and modernity, local charm and global ambition.
Nashville itself has a number of pet names: one has that it is “The Buckle of the Bible Belt”. The city of just over 650,000 souls is served by some 800 churches. If you look you can find one on almost every block, from the great stone edifices downtown to simple clapboard or fibro constructions in the suburbs.
It’s plausible that every one of them is kept busy washing away the sins committed on the few blocks of Broadway that they call the “Honky-Tonk Highway”. Music City’s neon-lit strip is full of foot traffic from 10am to 3am, and bands play for tips in the dozens of bars there whenever they are open. (continue reading)