Travel: Museums and mix tapes in the grand ole city of Nashville

The Grand Ole Opry House which hosts a live radio show every Saturday in Nashville.

The cool and quirky Henrietta Red is the brainchild of Julia Sullivan, serving up delicious, avant-garde seafood.

Being British, I feel no other country welcomes me as warmly as the US. It must be the accent.

But touching down in Nashville, Tennessee, after the first direct flight from London Heathrow to BNA Nashville Airport with British Airways, takes warm welcomes to a new level.

Here, I’m greeted with a truly epic fanfare. As a guitarist serenades me through the terminal, I’m handed a goodie bag containing local produce, fresh socks, and even a country music mixtape.

Music is the theme of this article, and rightly so, for everywhere one goes in Music City, one is bound to encounter it in some form or another. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the “honky-tonk” bars along Broadway, the central strip running through downtown Nashville.

Printers Alley Nashville is home to some eclectic and swinging bars. Pic: PA

Take Tootsie’s, for example. Its three floors each point toward a grand stage, upon which a different band or musician plays each night. Nashville has always been a magnet for singer-songwriters, from Elvis to Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton to Taylor Swift. Many established names still take to the stage at Tootsie’s to play an impromptu set every now and then.

Along Broadway, the true legends of Nashville are immortalised in the city’s endless list of museums.

The Johnny Cash Museum is a worthwhile visit, as is the Patsy Cline Museum next door. These are not just museums about the people, but about the place that made them. As I peruse the incredible displays, I start to understand the uniqueness of Nashville.

The true magnitude of the city’s relationship with music is revealed in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum – not only in its extensive collection but in the building itself, which underwent a $100 million extension in 2014. Viewed from the front, it looks like a set of piano keys, while from above it forms the shape of a bass clef.

If, like me, you’re not entirely au fait with the story of country music, this a great place to start your tour of Nashville. Look out for Elvis Presley’s gold Cadillac limousine and the Rotunda, modelled after the WSM radio tower, which contains the hard-earned plaques of Hall of Fame inductees.

A new museum is never more than a stone’s throw away in Nashville, and on the other side of Broadway is one of exceptional quality.

Opened last year, the National Museum of African American Music is an interactive journey like no other. Touchscreen visualisations help visitors build connections between black musicians through the ages, learning who influenced who, and how genres from jazz to hip-hop evolved.

Apart from being a crucial history lesson, this is without doubt the most fun I have ever had in a museum, with the chance to participate in a rap battle being my personal highlight.

All these locations orbit the monumental Ryman Auditorium, the so-called Soul of Nashville and original home of the Grand Ole Opry radio show.

Jonjo Maudsley is welcomed with a goody bag after the first flight from Heathrow to NA. Pic: PA.

A visually astounding presentation welcomes my tour group to this church-turned-theatre, regaling me with tales of how the Grand Ole Opry came and went, and how the auditorium itself was saved from the brink by the musicians who owed their careers to this building.

Nowadays, the show is broadcast from its own home on the outskirts of Nashville, the purpose-built Grand Ole Opry House. Taking place before a live studio audience of 4,400 people, visitors are invited to watch this breathtaking show on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

So how to sum up a city like Nashville? Let’s try this: picture a place where the hot-to-trot strut from dive bars to fancy restaurants in cowboy boots and Stetson hats; where acoustic guitar melodies waft out of every doorway; and where the roar of the local football stadium sends the city into a frenzy every weekend.

If you can imagine that, all that’s left is to get yourself to Nashville.

P.S.

Beyond music, Nashville has plenty to offer in terms of food and drink, too. An emerging culinary scene has seen the likes of Henrietta Red and Roze Pony springing up in recent years.

Factfile

British Airways flies direct from Heathrow to Nashville, from £447 return. W Nashville offers rooms from £275, Grand Hyatt Nashville from £179. Go to visitmusiccity.com