Music City Muttering
You need to hear this guy play. Unfortunately, that means taking a trip to Nashville. I’m not in a honky tonk tonight. I’m in Nashville for a music educators conference, meeting at the downtown convention center just a block from Broadway and its row of live music venues, but the live music I’m hearing right now is several blocks away from that incubator of country talent. Rather, I took the advice of the concierge at the hotel by the convention center and made my way to the Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar, and as I write this, I’m soaking up some tasty blues. So it’s not the kind of music one comes to Nashville to hear, but it’s still live, and it’s several notches better than an establishment this seedy could hope to attract in most other American cities. The surprising thing, though, is not that I’m hearing blues tonight; it’s that I had to skip out on the conference schedule to hear it. In fact, as beautiful and tuneful as this city is, the only reason I’m see...