Music City U.S.A

Me and the Mrs are going to Nashville this week. We already have Opry tickets for Saturday night March 17 (Loretta Lynn and Gretchen Wilson); TRYING to get tix for the sold-out George Jones show at the Ryman, and maybe the Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price show at the Ryman as well.

I've been to Nashville once before, when I was a little kid. I have 2 memories of Nashville - standing outside the Ryman Auditorium, the original home of the Grand Ole Opry, in the sweltering heat waiting to get in; and sitting inside the Ryman in the sweltering heat (it wasn't air conditioned at the time) watching the show. I don't recall exactly who was on the bill, but I seem to remember it was the late Hank Snow, and MAYBE Little Jimmy Dickens. But I didn't care – I was at the Grand Ole Opry, the shrine of country music, one of the cultural landmarks of American roots music.

I'm so looking forward to this trip. We were in Memphis and the Mississippi Delta a couple of years back, tracing the roots of Delta Blues music. I see this as a completion of sorts since country music was born of the blues, a sort of white man's blues. And of course both forms spawned rock and roll.

Yee haw!