Nashville, the Music City, is back on song
With the return of British Airways’ direct flights to Nashville and myriad milestone anniversaries in the Music City this year, it’s a great time to visit Tennessee
We call them ‘The Woo-Woo Girls,’” says musician Joseph sagely as we stroll past one of the many live music bars on the stretch of Downtown Nashville known as the Honky Tonk Highway.
It’s 11.30pm on a Tuesday night in late-May and the sidewalks are bustling with revellers. Since it’s still a humid 32°C, the neon-lit venues have their windows and doors thrown wide open, and a cacophonous mix of music floods the street right down to the Cumberland River. I look around for the girls Joseph is talking about.
A jangling guitar refrain starts up inside the bar beside us and a young woman on the pavement outside clasps her hands to her chest as if wounded by an invisible projectile. Dressed in Daisy Duke denim cut-offs, cowboy boots and a knock-off straw Stetson, she falls into a seated position on the window ledge, leans back against a guitar amplifier inside and, casting her eyes heavenward, howls a mimed duet with the band’s singer for the first few bars of 1998 hit single Iris.
It’s not a country tune, but then I’ve heard everything from The Eagles to Nirvana blasting out of these clubs.
“What, these guys?” I ask, jerking a thumb towards the female band performing The Goo Goo Dolls cover song.
“No, those ones,” says Joseph pointing to the Stetson-ed woman’s friends who, decked out in rhinestones and satin sashes, join her in a stumbling, impromptu karaoke.
Nashville is the US’s number-one destination for bachelorette parties, Joseph explains.
“We call them ‘Woo-Woo Girls’ because if you engage with them in any way whatsoever, they’ll lift their alcohol over their heads and shout, ‘Woooh!’”
Taking flight
Tennessee’s capital has long been a party getaway for North Americans, and it’s a spiritual home for country music fans the world over, but it’s still a destination on the rise. According to the tourist board, the city’s international visitor numbers have nearly tripled in the past 10 years.
When British Airways debuted Heathrow to Nashville in 2018, it quickly became the airline’s most successful US market launch in a decade, with British arrivals leaping 83%, from 20,285 to 37,123 in the first year of the direct service.
“The UK is our top overseas market. We can’t overstate the importance of having a non-stop flight from London for our growth as a destination,” says Deana Ivey, president of Nashville Convention & Visitors Corporation.
“UK arrivals are projected to return to 50% of pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022 and be back to 2019’s high point by 2023.”
The Music City is set for a summer of celebration, with 2022 marking big anniversaries. It’s the 130th of major venue the Ryman Auditorium, the 65th of RCA Studio B, the 55th of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Bluebird Cafe’s 40th.
New luxury hotel openings, including the Conrad Nashville, Four Seasons, and Soho House’s latest addition in the artsy Wedgewood- Houston neighbourhood, are also driving an increase in affluent travellers.
“We’ve changed our State bird from the mockingbird to the crane, that’s how quickly the buildings are going up around here,” jokes Debbie Malatino, a tour guide for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, as she takes me around the legendary RCA Studio B where Elvis recorded more than 200 songs.
Today you can still see the blue cross on the floor that marks the “sweet spot” for recording vocals, and have your picture at The King’s favourite piano. The attraction is set to become even more popular in the wake of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic.
Changing faces
The mix of old and new in the city is obvious when I visit a neighbourhood known as The Gulch. Here, The Station Inn, which has hosted live bluegrass and classic country music for over 40 years, is surrounded by trendy cafes and, since August 2021, towered over by the gleaming W Nashville.
However, as he shows me its light and airy lounge areas, the W’s general manager David Cronin concedes: “This opulence isn’t what Nashville is about. It’s places like the Station Inn and [fellow historic venue] The Bluebird Cafe that made Nashville what it is.”
Besides the five-star hotels, new and existing design-led properties, such as the Hutton Hotel near Music Row in midtown, are drawing a broader range of travellers. Local demographics are changing too as people move from less affordable cities.
My new young guitarist friend Joseph, elaborately bearded and with his head permanently wrapped in a bandana, moved from Chicago. I met him working in the Assembly Food Hall, which is part of the brand-new Fifth + Broadway development that brings together shopping, dining, and cultural attractions, including the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM).
Opened in January 2021, it has exhibits spanning genres from gospel to hip-hop, which explore the enormous impact that black musicians have had on popular music. In Nashville you can hear it in the songs played onstage at the historic Ryman Auditorium, and in front of live audiences at the Grand Ole Opry – home of the longest-running radio broadcast in US history.
Without the banjos and rhythmic influences of African music mixing with the fiddles and balladry of immigrants from the British Isles, country music would never have been born.
Nashville itself is going through a similar rebirth: while the things that made the city great remain, new influences are set to make it more popular with travellers than ever.
Book it
North America Travel Service offers a five-night stay at the Kimpton Aertson Hotel, tickets to either the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum or the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, plus direct British Airways flights from London, for £1,885pp in July, based on two adults sharing a deluxe king room.
Visas: British citizens need to acquire a visa waiver Esta from esta.cbp.dhs.gov. The fee has recently increased from $14 to $21.
Covid protocol: Proof of Covid-19 vaccination is required to enter the USA. For the latest information, visit gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa
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