A Long Weekend in Nashville
I can tell you with confidence that summer has begun in Nashville. How do I know this? Well, first of all, I was reliably informed by this sign that in the South, summer begins in April (and also that “y’all” is the only proper noun, which… hmm). But secondly, that sign was hanging in a Nashville Airbnb where I stayed with a couple friends recently, and every time we went outside, I think I sweated out my body weight in fluids. I never was much for the heat, but eighteen years of living in Yankeeland has apparently destroyed what little tolerance I had.
Heat issues aside, Music City was a blast. This was my first visit to Nashville, and I went in not really knowing what to expect. I like music as much as anyone, but I’m not plugged into the news and culture of the industry the way that some folks are, and I wasn’t sure what else there’d be to see and do around town. I just hoped to get a healthy dose of good Southern food; beyond that, I was ready to be surprised. And Nashville delivered.
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage
cw: slavery
We started our weekend with its most complicated stop. To be clear—it wasn’t complicated because my friends and I had any mixed feelings about President Andrew Jackson; the guy was a nightmare. Rather, it was the way history was presented at his plantation-turned-museum outside Nashville that left us frustrated and discouraged.
The experience was, as one of my friends described it, a “choose-your-own-adventure” tour through Jackson’s legacy. The visitors’ center was hung with banners calling Jackson “hero,” “legend,” and “the people’s President,” but conspicuously absent were any references to the Trail of Tears or the enslaved people that also lived at the Hermitage. The maps they gave us when we bought our tickets called the enslaved laborers’ cabins, half a mile or so past the Jackson mansion, the “field quarters,” so it seemed like euphemisms were going to be the order of the day.
I was a little reassured to see that once we got out behind the mansion and closer to the cabins, the interpretive plaques were less shy about the evils of slavery. We saw direct quotes from Hannah, Betty, Alfred and other enslaved workers, as well as photographs and findings from a multi-decade archaeological survey that—among other sites—included the no-longer-standing “field quarters.” Roughly 110 people had been forced to live in four small duplex cabins there, and the excavations highlighted the root cellars they used both to store food and to keep safe items that might have been considered “contraband.”
Still, we left the Hermitage feeling unsettled by how easy it would have been to bypass the brutal parts of its history—and we were more right than we knew. As I researched this section, I found out that in 2005, the Hermitage compiled the archaeological survey’s findings into an exhibit on the lives and legacy of enslaved people at the plantation. This exhibit was inside the museum that we passed to enter the Hermitage grounds. Tickets to the museum were timed entry, purchased separately, and none were available for the next three hours after we’d arrived—so, not knowing what was inside, we opted for tickets to the grounds only.
I also came across references to an Enslaved Memorial at the Hermitage, titled Our Peace, Follow the Drinking Gourd, and was baffled that we hadn’t seen it during our visit. It wasn’t marked on the maps we were given when we bought our tickets. I spent maybe half an hour searching online to figure out its location and how we could have missed it. As it turns out, the site is a graveyard for enslaved people who worked not at the Hermitage, but at a nearby plantation owned by Rachel Jackson’s family; the chief curator at the Hermitage told the Tennessean that they “decided to make it a memorial to all the people who had ever been enslaved, not just these particular individuals.”
The memorial isn’t on the Hermitage grounds proper. It’s across a four-lane highway, tucked in next to a Confederate soldiers’ cemetery.
Our trip to the Hermitage left us rattled. While it’s clear that there’s been some effort to raise the profile of enslaved people’s experiences, the Hermitage seems to want to have it both ways, simultaneously clinging to the nostalgic performance of antebellum luxury. If it, and sites like it, are going to stop being part of the problem, they’ll have to lead the charge in shattering the romantic plantation image they’ve helped create. Reconciliation—reparation—begins with accountability.
Shout out to a helpful resource: I used this guide to discussing slavery from NAACP Culpeper in writing this section.
The Parthenon
And now for some history in a more absurdist vein.
I certainly wasn’t expecting this.
Nashville’s nickname is, apparently, “The Athens of the South.” I didn’t know that, and I’ll bet you didn’t either, but Nashville sure as heck knows it. Back in 1897, the Tennessee Centennial Exposition decided to celebrate Nashville’s reputation with a full-scale replica of the famous Greek temple. Everybody loved it so much, they made it permanent.
It stands in the middle of Centennial Park, and when we visited, it was cheerfully crammed with clusters of people taking constitutionals or sitting and chatting in the shade. One bold soul had brought an amp and was setting the mood with some funky ambient guitar music. And it turns out, you can even go inside! The entrance is slightly underground, and there’s a gallery of American art on the basement level. The gallery was closed when we went, but we were able to see photos and artifacts from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition that brought the Parthenon to life.
Upstairs in the actual interior of the Parthenon structure, positioned exactly where she would have been in ancient Athens, is a full-scale replica of Athena Parthenos. Sculptor Alan LeQuire created it in 1990 and—bless him—did his best to recreate the ancient color schemes. It’s probably not news to anyone at this point that the elegant monochrome of ancient Greek sculpture is a deceptive artifact of age; when they were created, these pieces would have been decorated in bright colors that, when we see them now, look completely outlandish. Meaning that the roughly 12-meter-tall Athena Parthenos in the Nashville Parthenon is absolutely buckwild:
So much gold leaf.
The Nashville Parthenon also contains casts made from the original Parthenon Marbles that were used in the construction of the copy. They went so hard on this thing, for no other reason than civic pride and pedantic stubbornness, and I love that for them.
The Station Inn
I’m always a wee bit wary at the words “live music.” I don’t love most concerts; they’re too loud, I don’t like standing, and I’m uncomfortable with sweaty strangers touching me. I understand that I sound every one of my thirty-five years of age, but I’ve always been like this. Never, I remind you, make the mistake of thinking that I’m cool.
But in a city that’s famous for live music, you can’t not see some kind of performance. We took in a couple while we were in town, but by far and away my favorite was the Station Inn.
I have a soft spot for both kinds of music—country AND western—thanks to sheer familiarity. Southern blues, zydeco, Tejano, pop and classic country styles all made up the ambient soundtrack of my childhood. So when some combination of indie folk, my dad’s stories about learning the banjo, and the internet’s obsession with sad sailor ballads planted the seeds of bluegrass, I had fertile ground for them to grow. And if it’s bluegrass you’re looking for in Nashville, the only place to go is the Station Inn.
Look at that place. It hasn’t changed in forty years. Its neighborhood—the Gulch—has gone from run-down to trendy around it, and it still looks like that. Inside, a hodgepodge of folding tables and metal chairs; six-packs of Shiner served in metal buckets; layers of concert posters on every wall. Alison Krauss performed there in the eighties. We were there for a bluegrass jam: an improv session where anyone from beginners to living legends are liable to show up. I was in heaven.
I got to listen to two hours of first-rate picking while a cold bottle of Shiner soaked a condensation ring into the knee of my jeans. Five stars, no notes, A+ would do again.
Hot Chicken
The reason for the season! One member of our party had been working up to this meal for years, and by god, we weren’t going to leave Nashville without sampling at least a couple different kinds of hot chicken. We visited two of the classic joints: Bolton’s Chicken and Fish, and Prince’s. Bolton’s came first, and it’s a good thing, too; if we’d started with Prince’s, we would have been entirely unprepared for what we encountered there.
I’m no stranger to spice. And while I’ve consciously tried to avoid the weird macho posturing around hot sauces, I’d say that I handle my capsaicin better than the average bear. I didn’t expect Nashville to take it easy on us in the same way that the Midwest tends to, but I felt pretty good about walking up to the counter at Bolton’s and asking for my chicken and catfish “hot.” After all—as the Ringer article that inspired the trip noted—these restaurants serve “hot chicken.” You gotta try the thing they list above the door.
It was clear pretty quickly that we hadn’t known what we were getting ourselves into. I made the mistake of inhaling as I took a bite of catfish, and enough cayenne pepper made it down my throat that I had to take a minute before I could continue. The kick that this food delivered may have been the most spice I’ve ever dealt with in a single sitting. We were actively crying as we ate (dangerous for its own reasons; in a spectacular failure of common sense, I wiped my eye with my hand and regretted it loudly for the next fifteen minutes). We drank enough water and Dr Pepper to float a small battleship.
At some point, I broke through the pain and came out the other side, chowing down on my chicken with abandon. It hurt, yes, but the endorphins had finally kicked in, and I was riding high on reckless euphoria for the rest of the night. (Until about 3am, when my choices caught up with me.)
I can’t say I regret it. The chicken and the fish were delicious, and I have a newfound sense of my own resilience. Next time, though, I think I’ll get the medium.
We sampled Prince’s the next night, and the trauma around the table was palpable as we unwrapped our meals. But we had nothing to worry about. Bolton’s had left us hardened, ready for anything; nothing could hurt us now. (That, and Prince’s spice levels were a lot more predictable.) It was great food, but… I think I liked Bolton’s best, and I’m not sure what that says about me as a person.
Honorable Mentions
This is already the length of a small novella, but we did so many wonderful things in Nashville that I’d be remiss not to highlight a few more:
Parnassus Books (Ann Patchett’s bookstore)
Vanderbilt campus (It’s beautiful, and the magnolia trees are ENORMOUS)
Country Music Hall of Fame (Fascinating! Nostalgic! Loved the social-justice-oriented exhibit on current trends at the end!)
Third Man Records (Jack White’s shop and studio)
Lipstick Lounge (One of the country’s few lesbian bars; shoutout to the karaoke superstars who performed that night)
Thank you, Nashville, for being edifying, entertaining, and delicious. And here’s hoping that this is only the beginning of a return to safe, healthy travel. I’ve got two years of wanderlust to work off.
(all photos mine)