Drive

I went to AmericanaFest in Nashville

Maybe I was already coming down with something when I left for Nashville on Wednesday — that might explain my teariness as I drove down the Thruway on the way to LaGuardia Airport.  Alan Jackson’s “Drive” came up on Apple Music and, well it’s a great song in that way country songs of a certain era are—the indisputable ring of truth with each verse a different chapter of the singer’s life: a boat, a truck and a Jeep; that feeling of controlled freedom you get with an Alan Jackson vocal and I guess what got me the most— the word Daddy. “When Daddy let me—Drive.” It’s not safe to weep at seventy miles an hour so I held it together…barely.

It’s possible I’m extra vulnerable right now. People told me grief is like this, it’s not linear, it sneaks up on you. I keep having these moments when I don’t expect them. That universality of country music is what drew me to songwriting in the first place and it still gets me sometime…my Dad loved to drive and was really good at it and I’m the same. It was a bond we shared, even towards the end when I drove him in my Subaru to live in NYC and he admired my skills behind the wheel and said I was a regular Joey Chitwood. It meant a lot to get that praise from him because he rarely gave it out, to me anyway.

So yeah I was probably a bit of an emotional heap when I got off the plane at BNA, but I was heading to Music City with a lightness I didn’t used to have when I first visited, then lived, then returned again and again. Often I’d feel like I had something to prove but this time I just felt happy to be invited to participate in a panel at Americanafest, and also to play a showcase. The idea of playing a showcase after almost four decades of gigs is kind of funny, like “will I get discovered?” but hey you never know who might be there. At very least some friends or fans so what the hell?

In this easy spirit I got a kick out of waiting at baggage claim, seeing fellow musicians with their axes in cases, and gaggles of gal pals with what must be regulation-issue broad brimmed hats they all have to wear to these getaway weekends. When I went to check out my rental car, they were sold out of compacts and offered me a premium choice upgrade: pick-up truck, sports car or electric car. Gee, thanks.

I like to use a rental car at this type of thing as a sort of storage locker on wheels so wanted a car with a trunk, so “no” to the pickup truck. An electric car would be cool but there’s got to be a learning curve for fueling and I just couldn’t deal with that. So, okay - sports car? (please don’t let it be red…please don’t let it be red)

Out in the parking lot I found my way to an evil-looking black Dodge Challenger. Oh god.  The cute dreadlocked young guy who checked me out at the gate said “Don’t enjoy yourself too much in this car now!” Yep, it was like that. Though power-wise it did serve me well on Nashville’s bizarre highway system, where roads run simultaneously north, south, east and west until they diverge and you have to jump three lanes to go east or west. The festival had recommended Uber-ing etc but I hate not having wheels at these things. “Drive” indeed.

Challenger

Muscle memory started kicking in after I checked into my hotel and headed over to Brown’s Diner to see my friend Richard play. There’s this ridiculous long and then very sharp turn when you exit 440 that put me right back in the year 2000 when I moved here and started to learn my way around. It has been almost forty years since Last Roundup first came to Nashville and a friend took us to this trailer/bar that captured my imagination so much I wrote a song called “Brown’s Diner.” They just keep adding onto this very democratic place where anyone feels at home - what a relief it’s still there. I drank a bottle of Yuengling in my dad’s honor (no fancy-ass craft beer selection here) and had the classic burger and fries they’re known for, and enjoyed hearing soulful Richard Ferreira and his compadres play. Rounded off the night by stopping in the giant Kroger across the street, for old times’ sake, Kroger-ing was life in Nashville. I bought a few groceries to stick in my hotel fridge and remembered oh yeah, groceries were always cheaper down here.

The next day I braved the conference at the Westin Hotel to be on a panel, and it was fine. Americanafest has grown from a couple hundred people and a few venues to thousands of attendees and players and fifty or sixty venues.  I felt touched that anyone would think to include me since it had been twenty years since I played. Pretty overwhelming at the Westin but I saw a person I knew here and there. Warren Zanes introduced Lyle Lovett for an interview and that was a fun conversation, I do love hearing an origin story and Lyle’s musician life started back around the first time I went to Brown’s which struck me, as I always think these huge stars have to be older than me but that’s less and less the case these days.

Our panel was about music writing/writing and music. It was run by Scott Bomar who used to run BMG book publishing and actually offered me a book deal for Girl To City that I turned down, we didn’t even get to talk about that as the other panelists: Holly George-Warren (bios on Janis Joplin and Alex Chilton), RJ Smith (James Brown and Chuck Berry) and Silas House (poet laureate of Kentucky) were so accomplished and interesting and I guess I held up the DIY end of things. The hour flew by, I wish it could’ve gone on longer.

At this point I was so hungry, desperate to find food in downtown Nashville without having to walk far in the heat (which everyone said was way cooler than it has been- I’ve definitely become a lightweight when it comes to walking in the broiling sun) I went around the corner to City Winery where Brandi Carlisle was hosting writers in the round. Food was not possible but Sister Strings were just wonderful and Brandy Clark and Fancy Hagood and a 17 year old girl who sang a stunning song called Michelle all captivated me. Brandi was a little tipsy and goofy and I liked her. They introduced Gloria Johnson, one of the Tennessee Three whose gun control protest disrupted the state legislature earlier this year and who recently announced she’s running for Senate against Republican Marsha Blackburn. The people at the next table booed her and said “Vote Marsha!” and it seemed odd, that you’d go to a gig with mostly LGBTQ artists yet support someone who opposes same-sex marriage protections and a woman’s right to choose, I just don’t get it. Brandi has become a successful brand I guess, and money talks in this town, I was reminded Nashville is a not-quite blue island in Tennessee, a red state.

Brandi Carlisle and her crew

I found some food in a sushi bar that was really good, yes this city has changed so much! Then went back to the Westin to hear Holly George-Warren in conversation with Lucinda Williams. It was really moving seeing Lucinda’s strength in coming back from a stroke and hear her telling stories about her life, some that are in her recent autobiography and others just told in that unmistakable drawl I have listened to for over thirty years. I felt so much love and admiration for her and Holly who was doing a perfect job of keeping the talk on some kind of track. I was randomly sitting next to Siobhan Maher Kennedy who I knew a little bit back when we lived in Nashville- she remembers my daughter cause Hazel’s dad played with Steve Earle for so long and Siobhan’s husband Ray Kennedy produces Steve’s records, so she asked about Hazel and I felt so proud to tell her how she’s been touring, playing bass with a band. There are moments when I’m back in Nashville where it feels like I’ll always be a part of this town and that fills me with emotion and gratitude.

Lucinda and Holly

Went back to rest for a little while and try to figure out what to wear for my gig. I’d brought a new shirt that could work but I think it cost too much, especially when I see it’s made entirely of polyester! But now I feel stuck because otherwise it’d have to be a shirt that I’ve worn again and again and I decided to make the new shirt work and balance the cost against all the three dollar thrift store shirts that make up the bulk of my wardrobe. I ran through some songs and tried to watch a silly film, Book Club 2, but it was just too badly written and made me angry that four great actresses would end up gamely trooping through tripe like this. I really liked the first Book Club but had to turn this one off.

Anyway, I headed out to the venue for my show, it was a big bowling alley complex put together by Jamie Rubin whose old club Family Wash was a Nashville classic. I worried how I’d handle the sound of bowling since i was playing solo, but the performance space was separate from the lanes. Then I worried how I’d go on after Chuck Mead and his rocking band that even added Deke Dickerson to the mix for the last number. I mean I was really scared. But I knew my songs and had my guitar and the people working the fest were super-helpful and there were actually people there to hear me. I loved playing for them. I thought about the people I knew from Nashville who aren’t with us any more: Jack Emerson, Jim Ridley, John Prine, David Olney, Peter Cooper, Dave Roe. Once again, I felt so grateful for whatever small part I played in this town from coming here with my dreams all those years ago.

Mark Michel took this pic at Eastside Bowl, I think there was even a smoke machine

Had a quick drink with Laura Cantrell and Jeremy Tepper at Sid Gold’s (didn’t know Nashville had one! It’s really cool) and headed back to my hotel and slept better than the night before because I’d made it through the panel and show, and also had finally found a way to keep the a/c system from roaring all night was to simply…unplug the whole thing.

Next day I met a friend for coffee at Crema, Eric’s favorite spot for coffee when he visits, and then made a pilgrimage to me and Hazel’s old neighborhood where I owned a house in the early 2000’s. It hasn’t changed too much because the street is a historic district. I sent Hazel a picture—I still have plenty of regrets about how things went the last year or two there but time (and perhaps writing about if for my next book) is helping put it all in some kind of perspective.

I saw some more friends play at a cute place called Bowery Vault : Jaimee Harris (I don’t know her well but am a fan), Will Kimbrough and Amelia White, they all just keep getting better and better.  Then I met up with our pal Andrija who’s done mastering for Eric and my records. His friends had just opened a cute falafel place in East Nashville and it does feel good to see all the young energy that keeps growing this place even though I know the development is out of control. These guys took a decrepit old building and put a lot of sweat into fixing it up and so it isn’t all corporate money, just like Eastside Bowl, and Grimey’s Records that have just grown and keep thriving by filling a need multiplied by all the new arrivals to this town. Time marches on…

Amelia White rocks at Bowery Vault- love the boots on stage, it’s also a vintage shop

Around evening I started feeling a little poorly and went back to my hotel. I got kind of feverish and decided I’d better stay put and not go out to see shows as much as I wanted to. Talk about vulnerable: alone in a hotel room feeling like crap, and they didn’t even have Tylenol at the front desk. I pulled out my guitar and wrote a song which led to me sobbing and then made it through the night listening to Jimmy Buffett; returned my bitchin’ sports car early the next morning and flew back home to find out I had Covid. I don’t feel too bad. Mostly, glad I went down to play and hoping I can go back soon when there isn’t so much going on all at once.

I feel like I used to want so much when I went to Music City and maybe it’s just part of getting older to not expect things to happen anymore but think “what can I bring?” Whatever “making it” used to look like, nowadays it seems enough to keep working, that’s the point and that’s the reward too. No more Daddy to give me permission, or to prove stuff to, but I still have the urge. Drive.

Just thank god I’m back in my own car.