50 hours in music city, usa

yeehaw!

i'm back from nashville. i was there for work, which was good, but i also made time for a little fun. they don't call it music city, usa, for nothing. along broadway is a stretch of bars, clubs and honky tonks that are filled with live music. everything from old-school country to rockabilly to blues. lots of good stuff. and i didn't even make it to the famous grand ole opry, ryman auditorium or bluebird cafe.

we did stop at rippey's, where two guys were playing toby keith covers across from a big convention center with the gaylord name on it -- talk about the oklahoma influence following me wherever i go. it was a little more twang than we were after, so we pressed on to legend's corner, where a sign on the bathroom said "kenny chesney was here." i thought of amy swooning. then it was on to tootsie's, where we saw the only saxaphone player i've ever seen in a country band... and he happened to be african american. while talking with him between sets he asked if were all new zealanders. nevermind that our group consisted of two indians and an asian. maybe the crowd had bought him one too many drinks.

we watched -- and laughed and made fun of -- sleezy old married men in town for a conference who were slamming bourbon as fast as they could while hitting on women young enough to be their daughters. as the waitress explained, "drink 'til they're cute" is a way of life for some of the young barflies in town.

also, as part of the conference we had a little private performance by a great group of musicians who perform under the name "freedom sings." craig krampf, of "eye of the tiger" and "bette davis eyes" fame, anchored the group on the drums. jonell mosser, who has played with ringo starr and b.b. king and can be heard on the "hope floats" soundtrack, brought a bluesy influence to the vocals. she gave us a great take of janis joplin's "mercedes benz." jason white, who wrote tim mcgraw's "red ragtop," offered up some nice acoustic guitar playing and a few beautiful, unreleased ballads. don henry, who has written for the likes of ray charles, kept us laughing with randy newman-esque lyrics (see below). bill lloyd, who kept things soft and straight ahead both in his lyrics and his licks. shonka dukureh, who brought an elegant, soulful touch to every word she sang, including a version of billie holiday's "strange fruit" that brought tears to my eyes. and joseph wooten, who kept things funky on the keyboards and funny with songs like "testosterone."

"b.f.d."
by don henry and craig carothers

it ain't his fault that she went AWOL
'cause he tried everything from A to Z
now it's J&B, M&M's and KFC
trying hard to make himself believe

(chorus)
it ain't no BFD, he's got his CMT
no S-E-X but that's OK
at least he's no SOB like that Ph.D
who took his X and ran off to L.A.

she likes CNN and made fun of his TNN
always called it E-I-E-I-O
now their love is R.I.P. at least he's F-R-E...E
and he ain't crying on his P-I-L-L-O

(chorus)
so one night he ordered pizza
for some R&R with the NFL
when a delivery girl named lisa
stole his heart when she rang his bell

now they're in LUV and it's XTC
no S-E-X (yet), but that's A-OK
cause he feels like a VIP with all of her TLC
and ASAP she'll be his fiance
and that's a BFD in a real good way