Guitars twang and neon lights blaze
in Nashville. Country music is the
city’s main business, but tunes of all
kinds fill the air. It’s a polite city – and
Tennessee’s capital – with a southern
accent and taste for hot chicken and
gooey chocolate treats.
Where Country Began
In 1925, a Nashville radio host invited fiddle and
banjo players to come to the studio to perform
bluegrass or ‘country’ music from the nearby
Appalachian Mountains. People across America
heard it, and that’s how country music became
famous. The radio show was called the Grand Ole
Opry and it’s still on every Friday and Saturday night
in more than 30 US states. Now it broadcasts from
the Grand Ole Opry House, a 4,372-seat theatre
where country music’s top stars perform.
Gooey Treats
Nashville has its own candy bar called
the Goo Goo Cluster – a sticky blend
of marshmallow, peanuts and caramel
wrapped in milk chocolate. A local
factory started making the treat more
than 100 years ago, and now 20,000
Goo Goos an hour pop out of the
plant. No one is sure how the candy
got its name, although some say it
comes from the first words that a
baby says.
Christmas
in July
Nashville’s Opryland
Hotel is one of the
world’s most enormous
hotels. It’s so big that
a river runs through it!
There’s a mansion built
inside its glass walls,
along with 17 restaurants
and 2,882 rooms. Staff
start decorating for
Christmas in July – it
takes months to string
two million lights up
through the hotel’s trees.
Revenge of the
Hot Chicken
Nashville’s most famous dish
is hot chicken – fried poultry
pieces coated in a super-spicy
sauce made with cayenne
pepper. A local woman invented
the recipe to get revenge on
her boyfriend. He stayed out
too late one night, so she
secretly poured loads of hot
sauce on his chicken to teach
him a lesson the next morning.
Turns out he loved it, and
started making the peppery
recipe at his restaurant soon
after. Today eateries all over
town fry up hot chicken.
The Other Parthenon
Have you heard of the Parthenon –
the temple built in Greece 2,500
years ago? Nashville has the
world’s only full-scale replica,
and it’s much easier to
get to! Climb the steps,
go through the towering
columns, and you’ll see the
biggest indoor statue in the
Western Hemisphere –a
gold Athena, the goddess
of wisdom. The replica was
all built when Nashville held
the Tennessee Centennial
Exposition (a sort of mini
World’s Fair) in 1897.
Guitar-shaped
Driveway
Andrew Jackson, the USA’s
seventh president, lived in
Nashville. He’s famous for fighting
duels and being a war hero (his
soldiers nicknamed him ‘Old
Hickory’, because he was as tough
as hickory wood), but also for
having slaves and forcing Native
Americans off their land. His
Nashville mansion is called the
Hermitage. Weirdly, he built his
driveway in the shape of a guitar –
and that was in the 1830s, before
Nashville became Music City!
Many locals think it was an omen.
Singing and Songwriting
Over the years, so many musicians came to town
to play for the Grand Ole Opry that an entire
industry grew up around them. Recording
studios, record companies and performance
halls opened, many packed into an area
known as Music Row. Singers and
songwriters continue to stream into
Nashville to find fame, not just in
country music, but in rock, folk
and blues, too. No wonder it’s
nicknamed ‘Music City’.