The Colours Of Music City

In Praise Of Letterpress In Nashville, Where Music And Old-school Design Have Long Harmonised

- Liz Beatty

On an early Sunday morning in January, Nashville’s Lower Broadway—“Lower Broad” to locals—looks like the day after a zombie apocalypse. There’s not a soul in sight for two full blocks, save one homeless fellow in an alcove next to an Elvis statue. I pull the last two dollars from my pocket and hand them to him.

I pass the purple-painted Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. In earlier days this gritty watering hole welcomed Mel Tillis, Waylon Jennings, and Patsy Cline, just a few of the headliners who would slip across the alley from the Ryman Auditorium for a quick drink. On quieter nights a famous face may still drop in to play with the revered house band.

Doors all along the street are now shut beneath unlit neon signs, more than a few in the shape of guitars. Some of the best but lesser known country musicians anywhere played these venues last night in the coveted after-10 p.m. Saturday slot. But, as is increasingly the case, many went unnoticed among the growing number of raucous bachelorette parties and convention goers. Nashville is booming; about a hundred people a day are said to move here, and the visitor count is approaching 15 million annually, with record increases year after year.

I try to conjure the riotous scene along this strip just hours earlier: pounding music, neon, visitors spilling out of bars. For many, the now desolate streetscape would mean one sad thing: The show is over. For me, however, and what I’m looking for, I’m right on time.