Looking out
the window: Tennessee.
Nashville
coming up.
I never have
found suitable words for this feeling: coming home.
Past times
linger longer here,
transcend my
wanderings, my years,
waiting for me
even
up here at
10,000 feet,
bumping
through the clouds
covering those
central Tennessee rolling hills.
Getting on to
night time.
A big ol’ lake
down below,
the water
fitting just so to the shore.
Nashville from the Air -- Chip Hysler
James Robertson, John Donelson, and a party of Overmountain Men founded Nashville in 1779, near the original Cumberland settlement of Fort Nashborough, named after Francis Nash, one of the 10 generals killed during the American Revolution. In 1843 it was named the capital of Tennessee, and was the first Confederate capital to be taken by US troops during the Civil War. Vanderbilt University was founded in 1873, endowed by transportation magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. In the early 20th century the school was associated with the Fugitives and later the Agrarians, authors and literary scholars who promoted "New Criticism," the dominant mode of textual analysis in the US at the time, and contributed to the Southern Renaissance; John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Donald Davidson, and Robert Penn Warren were prominent members of both groups. The city is nicknamed "Music City, U.S.A." In 1925 George D. "Judge" Hay founded the Grand Ole Opry as a weekly radio concert known as the WSM Barn Dance, the longest-running radio broadcast in American history; it became the most prestigious country music venue. In the mid-1950s Steve Sholes, Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley, Bob Ferguson, and Bill Porter invented "the Nashville sound" in country music by replacing elements of the older honky tonk style (fiddles, steel guitar, nasal lead vocals) with smoother elements from pop music (string sections, background vocals, crooning lead vocals). By 1960 Nashville replaced Hollywood as the nation's 2nd-largest record-producing center, though New York remained at the top spot. In the 1960s it morphed into Countrypolitan, which was even more indebted to contemporary pop music. In 1967 the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum opened.
ReplyDelete