Country and gospel are still cool in Music City, and you can still find big hair, hats and guitars in the clubs and corners along the “Honky-Tonk Highway” (that’s Broadway downtown) any night of the week. Grand Ole Opry packs ’em in by the thousands, too, for its weekly shows and broadcasts.
But new strains are filling the air. The legendary “Nashville sound” created decades ago by Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves and Floyd Cramer now shares billing with a broadening range of musical genres. You only have to check the artist roster for festivals like Next Big Nashville to see how the traditional stereotypes are moving over for a new breed of rock, pop and independent performers local and new.
Bands and record labels are also relocating from Los Angeles and New York in search of Nashville’s creative energy, abundance of songwriters and publishers, recording studios, rehearsal spaces, attractive performance venues—and lower living costs.
“Country music will always have its place in Nashville,” declares Benjamin Goldberg, a 28-year-old restaurant and club owner whose three 24-hour bar and dining venues include the hip and young BarTwenty3 and City Hall. “But we now have a lot of other themes in districts like The Gulch, a former railroad warehouse district that’s transitioning. These places are opening up in newer, modern spaces where you have exposed brick walls, concrete floors and floor-to-ceiling glass windows. They’re not so focused on country.”
Goldberg’s latest venture, Aerial, a glass-covered events venue atop the roof of his Paradise Park Trailer Resort diner on Lower Broadway, offers groups another perspective on Nashville. With 4,000 square feet of indoor and patio spaces, guests are able to look down from a sophisticated perch on the Broadway honky-tonk scene, historic Ryman Auditorium, the Sommet Center, and the new symphony hall.
Goldberg has packed the new site with “everything” for events, he says, and expects to sign on a range of events ranging from corporate gatherings to CD release parties, sports events and weddings—with and without country themes.
Glassed-in event spaces are also a signature of Nashville’s most famous meetings destination 20 minutes from downtown: Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. Here, lush indoor gardens, winding rivers and pathways, waterfalls and shops line the way to guest rooms and meeting spaces throughout the resort. Opryland offers many features, and there’s more coming. By 2010, $500 million worth of upgrades and expansions will bring the resort facility’s portfolio to 3,281 guest rooms and a million square feet of meeting spaces.
Enhancements to the resort’s dining and entertainment outlets are on the project roster, to better showcase the culinary prowess of Gaylord Opryland F&B teams, including Water’s Edge Marketplace in the Delta Atrium, where upbeat international shopping and dining outlets will lure resort guests. And with a nod to her Grand Ole Opry nextdoor neighbor, the resort is realigning its entertainment options to include more live music venues than ever, including a Las Vegas-style nightclub.
But the country faithful need not despair. Despite its 21st century segway into other music genres, it’s still easy to find steel guitars, dobros and mournful vocals spilling out into Nashville’s neon-lit streets. It’s just that trendy rock bands and a crescendo of brass, violins and timpani are also filling the air where Elvis, Dolly, Waylon, and Hank recorded their songs for posterity.
