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About Nashville
Nashville is a city with melodious roots. Best known as Music City, USA, the capital of Tennessee is where honky-tonk songwriters become stars and where dreams of glitz and glamour become reality. It was during the 1960s that the city became the place to record--legendary Music Row was born, and today Nashville is home to a $2-billion-per-year recording industry.
Country music permeates every nook and cranny of the city, from RCA's historic Studio B (where Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton cut songs), to the chic Belle Meade neighborhood peppered with stars' mansions, to The District, packed with bars and clubs projecting fiddle chords and love 'em or leave 'em lyrics. The renowned Grand Ole Opry beckons aspiring singers, musicians and songwriters, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum honors those who make it big. You can catch a glimpse of tomorrow's country legends on the stages of at least two dozen clubs and attend radio and television tapings that welcome the public. Even The Hermitage, President Andrew Jackson's antebellum home, gives a nod to music--its driveway curiously resembles the shape of a guitar. Souvenir and record shops are plentiful, and a shopping excursion might result in a hard-to-find vinyl demo or a rhinestone jacket.
Present-day Nashville is the result of extensive urban renewal projects to renovate highways, parks and buildings. For example, the cast-iron and masonry facades on many of the buildings in the warehouse district were restored or re-created and now front offices, shops, clubs and restaurants in The District, downtown's booming retail and nightlife area.
Sandwiched between The District and the Cumberland River is Riverfront Park, which contains historic Fort Nashborough as well as an outdoor venue for jazz, blues, soul and gospel music concerts.
An interesting historical spot in Nashville is the City Cemetery at 1001 Fourth Ave. S. It is the burial place of many of Nashville's most memorable figures, including its founder, Gen. James Robertson, and Capt. William Driver, who nicknamed the U.S. flag "Old Glory." An act of Congress made Driver's grave one of the few places the flag is permitted to fly 24 hours a day.
Though Nashville has much to offer, it is the image of the Country Music Capital of the World that dominates in the hearts of many. Whenever we think of Nashville, it is not native sons Sam Houston, Thomas Hart Benton, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson or James K. Polk who spring to mind, but such entertainment superstars as Chet, Faith, Reba, Hank, Johnny and Vince.
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