It is not Music City anymore.

Old fart semi-rant.

Back when I lived in Nashville (Mid 80s), you could see/feel/smell/hear the music practically anywhere you went and specially in Music Row and adjacent areas. Not only the place was filled with studios and record companies and every light post was decorated with stapled bills announcing small concerts or musical gathering at bars and parks. There were shops everywhere catering to anything music, from hard to find records to instruments, to luthiers and even clothing and hats made to order. Add to that having a concert almost every week at the Municipal Auditorium or Gilley’s from some top band or group who you would invariably catch having after show drinks at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge.

But above all, you were able to see one thing roaming the streets: Musicians. You could tell by the way they were dressed and a lot of them by one “accessory” in their hands: A guitar case because you never knew when you were going to bump into somebody in the Biz that would ask you to play something and discover you. Then again it may just simply be somebody who liked to play guitar for the love of it and fill the street with a bit of joy.

A couple of weeks ago, I realized that besides the old music and music business locations being substituted by barista palaces, vegan eateries and assorted “enlightened” stores plus overpriced apartment buildings, I had not seen one single solitary person carrying a guitar case or anything musician-related or even looking the part.

Till yesterday.

Young fella looks like a student so probably he is in Belmont University in a Music program of some sorts. In three plus years of roaming around Nashville, I finally see one person with a guitar case where I used to see one or two daily before breakfast.

So, let’s bury the moniker Music City for Nashville as that spirit has left for good.

Cities change. It is the natural evolution of things, I guess.

And lived and enjoyed the hell out of that old Nashville and will smile at the memories that keep coming back.