There’s a company that runs a shuttle service from hotels and RV parks in the suburbs to downtown Nashville. Donna called them Monday morning and arranged for a pick-up here at Grand Ole RV Park at 2pm. The round-trip shuttle service costs $15/person. We thought 2pm would be early enough to miss rush-hour traffic on the 30-minute ride downtown. It was also late enough by the time we got there for the bands to be playing on Broadway.

The shuttle dropped us off by the Country Music Hall of Fame on 5th and Demonbreun. We walked a block north to Broadway and made our way down to the waterfront on 1st Avenue. Most of the activity is in the bars and clubs on Broadway between 4th and 2nd Avenues. We crossed to the north side of Broadway and made our way back toward 4th Avenue and stopped at a few clubs to see who was playing.

We made our first stop at Whiskey Bent Saloon where two guys were taking requests. It was amazing – someone would put in a request, then while one of them was playing and singing a song the other would look up the song requested on a smartphone and would learn the song in a matter of minutes and play it.

Stump the Band

We heard rock and roll coming from a club across the street and stopped there for a couple of cold ones. It was Nudie’s Honky Tonk. The name doesn’t mean what you might think it means. The club is named after Nudie Cohn. Nudie was born in Ukraine and was a renowned tailor. He made suits for everyone from Ronald Reagan to Elton John and, of course, Elvis Presley. He made the $10,000 gold lamé suit worn by Elvis. The club has photos of Nudie with various artists and celebrities lining the walls along with various suits he made.

The band was playing classic rock with a power trio format when we came in. Nashville isn’t just country music.

Rockin’ power trio

After a few songs, a girl joined the band to sing. She was good and could cover a wide range of tunes – everything from Journey to Led Zeppelin. The guitar player was clever – when they played What I Like About You by the Romantics, he hit chords with what must have 32nd notes to simulate the harmonica in the original tune.

Power trio now fronted by a woman

We moved on and went to The Stage on Broadway. The band playing there was smokin’ hot. I was wearing a black Gibson shirt and the band leader started teasing me a bit. He asked what I wanted to hear – I said Bob Dylan. He said okay and started the intro to Knockin’ on Heavens Door, then stopped. He asked me my name and I said Bob Dylan – if I would have been quicker on my feet, I would have said Robert Zimmerman – Bob Dylan’s real name. He wanted to know my name, so I told him. Then he said if I could answer a question, I would win a prize. He asked what band besides Bob Dylan covered that song. I said everyone’s done that song. He said, “Okay, what band other than Bob Dylan had a number one hit with that song?” I responded with Guns N’ Roses. He said, “Bingo! Right answer. That means you get to buy a round of drinks for the band – three whiskeys and a Coke.” Then they played the song.

Later he donned sunglasses and fake sideburns to cover an Elvis number. I thought he looked more like Neil Diamond.

Elvis or Neil?

The guy sitting stage right ripped on the steel guitar and he was no slouch with a standard electric guitar either. The front man with the left-handed Telecaster was unbelievable. At one point in the show he asked if anyone in the audience had an empty beer bottle. A woman gave him one. They launched into the Allman Brothers Ramblin’ Man and he used the beer bottle to play slide guitar licks. It takes a deft touch to hit the notes with something as big and heavy as a beer bottle!

Beer bottle slide guitar

It only rained once while we were downtown and we were sitting in the Whisky Bent Saloon at the time. We knocked off early and caught the shuttle back to the RV park. Donna stopped in at the office/restaurant and picked up the daily special for dinner – Shepherd’s pie with cornbread.

Wednesday was mostly a hang out day for me. I made a run to Walmart for a couple of things and stopped at the Cigar Club and bought a couple of cigars. Donna had a visitor in the afternoon – a Facebook friend by the name of Charmaine Alsager. They discovered that they have a few friends and interests in common.

Earlier in the day, I got a text and phone call from Lester Foreman. We met Lester and his wife, JoAnn, at the Tom Sawyer RV Park in West Memphis in 2015. I wrote about Lester and his Vixen coach in this post. Lester had been checking in with us through the blog and knew where we were. He wanted to tell me about a great place for breakfast about 20 miles away called the Bottom View Farm.

Donna and I headed out on the Spyder at 7:30am this morning to find the place for breakfast. I missed a turn and we ended riding for about an hour before I found it. We were pretty hungry by the time we arrived, but as luck would have it, there was a note on the door: Sorry, closed due to a death.

We ended up getting breakfast at Johnson’s Crossroads Cafe – Donna had noticed it on the way out and thinks that it was a restaurant Charmaine had recommended the day before. The food was good and the service was fast. Today I’ll have to tidy up the trailer. We’re heading north to Frankfort, Kentucky tomorrow. The temperature will be 90 here and we’ll probably have another thundershower before the day is done. The forecast for Frankfort is about 10 degrees cooler and hopefully it’ll stay dry there.