America’s greatest music town, according to Steven Tyler: “It’s a musical Mecca”
When I turned 21, I travelled across America with a friend. Revving the engine of a somewhat broken camper van, we bounced from one obscure town to the next, with the sole purpose of stumbling on unpredictability.
We knew it wouldn’t be found in the plastic mid-sized cities of corporate America, but instead in its bordering communities, where idiosyncratic characters and burgeoning bands would congregate. And always, in a bar.
It was a formative trip for the memories I made, tracing the footsteps of idols I had read about. The words of Jack Kerouac were focused into reality as I lived the half-baked life of a rambling troubadour. But what no book or song ever told me was just how big this country was. Sure, I had an inkling, but all I found myself doing upon return was saying “no” whenever someone asked if I had made it to whatever town they suggested. San Diego? No. Austin? No. Nashville? No.
The last two were particularly irritating, for I knew how deep the musical history was there. The latter was particularly irritating, as it ultimately represented something completely unique to me. Of course, Austin is steeped in iconography, but as a Bristol native, it ultimately represents a transatlantic equivalent of my liberal hometown.
But Nashville is indeed on the tip of every musical tongue in America. In this town, gigs are plentiful as burgeoning musicians walk through the riches of dive bars that all play a special part in musical history. However, it’s not just emerging talent that flocks there, hoping to capture the essence of Elvis or understand Paul Simon’s pilgrimage. Legends come back, too, hoping to re-establish their understanding of music’s purity.
In 2016, Steven Tyler moved to Tennessee’s capital to record his solo country album We’re All Somebody From Somewhere. And upon moving there, he realised he never wanted to be anywhere else: “I came to Nashville. I rented a house. Now I just bought a house, so I’m living here full-on. It’s a musical Mecca. I co-wrote with everyone down here, and I think I’ve done some of my best work through this country head.”
So why would Tyler, a man who’s been offered all the riches, glitz and glamour music has to offer, decide to permanently base himself in Nashville? It’s simple, he explained, “This town still has the passion for music. It hasn’t lost it through business and money, which may be big here, but the music aspect still has the passion.”
Adding, “Artists come here from all over the world to be part of it, and there’s so much music dripping out of the honeycomb of this town that I’m in it. I’m in it neck-deep. I’m going to stay here, I’m going to live here. I love it here.”
Times have moved on, and music has moved as well. Few places still have that aura of romanticism, as the world becomes bogged down in a capitalist and commercially driven society. But it seems that when you wade past all of that and sit down in front of a Nashville stage, the purity of music shines through.
