Nashville, Tennesse. The american music capital. Here everything is
about music, even the advertising in the airport is about live music clubs,
beer spots and news have a guitar in their logo, fast food are named after
radio music programs and guitars are showcased. In town you can hear
music everywhere and everytime. Even the school ring bell plays September
by Earth Wind and Fire.
And guitar shops, museums, concert halls, almost everything is brand new and
built to enhance economy and tourism. It could sound like a made up amusement park, but
it's all about good music, which is not bad at all.
I'm Pietro of Accordo.it and today I'm not talking you from my usual studio because I got to the USA
to learn about the latest news from Taylor Guitars for 2019. But we can talk later about this.
Today I want to share with you my Nashville experience, living on my sking
what does it mean to be in a city that makes music and mainly guitar
its primary business.
Let's just skip the journey from home to Nashville, something like a 30 trip hours that went
almost like this.
FUUUUU....
... CK!
Nashville is one of the symbols of country music, it has a huge heritage
and lately it has grown really fast.
The Music City Center, a concert place over about 200k square meters
opened in 2013 is the perfect example.
But Nashville isn't a tourist fake thing and it shows its story
with places like the Ryman Auditorium, one a gospel tabernacle and historic house of
the Grand Ole Opry, where all the greatest used to play,
including Chet Atkins, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.
When the show moved, the Ryman got closed for about 20 years and it was
about to be torn down, but in 1994 it opened again and in 2012 a huge
reconstruction program started. Today it hosts any kind of event.
It's also a museum, but videos are not allowed in the inside.
Just a few blocks away, you shall visit the Country Music Hall Of Fame in its
peculiar building with a piano-shaped front and, if you look at it from above,
a bass cleff shape. Here you can see a huge collection of astonishing instruments
once belonged to the country music greats. Neither this place allows videos, but
these pictures may make you understand what's like being in three floors of guitars, memorabilia and
music teaching stuff, because here guitars are literally explained in the museums.
It already is dinner time: 6pm, that for a neapolitan guy is
after lunch coffee break. We get to the restaurant where
we're meeting Taylor Guitars. Here in Nashville they may have a great musical heritage, but
gastronomy isn't what americans are known for, so...
mexican restaurant!
Here we met our foreign fellows and Taylor's team.
This sir is Tim O'Brien, vice-president of marketing.
The first night lets us know each others and, after we decided with Tim Godwin,
artist relations for Taylor, that we shall record together the "Tequila song",
we decide to hit Broadway, the live music street.
Meanwhile in the daylight this is a quiet place, even with a few acoustic concerts here and there,
when the sun goes down it literally explodes with people and music in every club, one next to another
and with the stage just next to the street, sometimes behind a window,
sometimes just there with no glass. Walking down Broadway is like shuffling the radio stations.
The party mood takes over us and, with Philip Zeppenfeld from
the german magazine Guitar, we decide to show to the world what great journalist we are.
When an over-excited fan intercepts us, we decide it's time to declare the night over.
Tomorrow is gonna be a long day.
Meet in the hall to finally see the 2019 catalog. Oh yes,
he's Cameron Walt, product marketing manager and our guardian angel
who literally saved me from being stuck in the airport until today.
The conference is at the Southern Ground, recording studios chose by people like
Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Allman Brothers, Brian Setzer, Foo Fighters, Megadet
and a lot of other nice people.
Coffee break while Brandon Bell introduces the studio he's director for and
it's time for Andy Powers, master guitar designer at Taylor Guitars.
Unfortunately, they asked us to keep the secret for now on what we saw, but we'll show you everything very soon.
What we can already show you are
the first impressions by Philip, who you already met, and his colleague
Stephen Hildebrand, who just tried out the new instruments with their own hands.
For the next stop, we move to Gruhn Guitars
this big building stuffed with any kind of guitar, acoustics electrics,
original pieces with big fat price tags and also something a bit... uncommon.
We learn that George Gruhn has another passion:
animals, but not the furry ones. In his office, he has a little snake zoo!
Legend says that he would hide a snake in one of the guitar cases he carried in his car,
so nobody would ever try to steal them, because they couldn't tell which one did contain the dangerous snake.
A short talk with Tim O' Brien, Andy
Powers and the lovely musician Alison Brown, George shares some of his experience
and his point of view about Taylor's latest work. Looks like he really appreciates Andy as a guitar builder.
Lunch time! We can choose between a vegan restaurant and hot fried chicken.
I chose chicken. I notice that I'm sharing the same table
with half of the journalists I read on a daily base from foreign magazines. Only in the evening I'll
discover that this guy is Gearmanndude, one of my favorites and one of the first
youtube gear testers, which I never managed to see in his face. I can confirm
he's not Jack Black. It looks more like Corrado Nuzzo from the italian comedy duo Nuzzo and Di Biase...
Back to the car, we're moving outside the city center... quite outside... for the last stop
at the Bluebird Cafe, a club famous in Nashville for live music and songwriting
where a lot of artists have been discovered and where many bigs still play today.
Here Andy Powers, Michael Lille, Sean Watkins and Sara Masen play a small jam
for us. The 2019 Taylors have a leading role, so I can only show this piece
with a little censor...
<sophisticated acoustic concert>
5:15, dinner time! For the finale we head to The Husk, a really unique restaurant
built inside of a colonial style house. We get thru the porch and the restaurant's own vegetable garden
to reach our dependance. After dinner we are meeting again in a hotel's suite
to play the new guitars a little more and to say goodbye.
Tomorrow we're having an exclusive interview with Andy,
you'll see it soon on Accordo.it. We left the last word to him for this video.
The days I spent in Nashville were intense, the experience
was crazy, you can't forget. But it's time to get back home,
so, if you excuse me...
FUUUU....
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