We went to the Taste of N’awlins for the Butcher’s birthday with some friends. By chance, they were having all you could eat shrimp, which meant we got to carry on the Butcher’s usual birthday tradition without having to go to Red Lobster.
I still got the jambalaya, though. And damn, it was tasty.
But that was not the drama and excitement.
No, the drama and excitement was that they had live music. Now, we walked in and I was like “Live music?! Damn it, is there not one non-chain place in this town that doesn’t have live music?” but the singer was all “You can’t go anywhere in Nashville and hear live music with your dinner. We’re bringing music back to Music City! Especially Cheatham County!” And, well, fuck it, if you’re going to call Cheatham County part of Music City, I suppose there are a lot of places you can go and just eat your dinner and not have someone singing too loud at you.
(Not to frighten you off from Taste of N’awlins. Just, if you go, ask to be seated on the non-music side.)
Shoot, I expect one of the reasons people move to Cheatham county these days is to get away from dinner performances.
I know this sounds a little grouchy on my part, but believe me, everyone has shit-tons of talent in Nashville. There is no shortage of places you can go and hear fabulous music and have some dinner and drink some drinks. Finding good places where you can eat a meal and talk and be heard by the people at your table and know the food is going to be outstanding? Slowly shrinking to just Southern Bred.
So, of course, the performer last night was a back-up singer for Bill Anderson so she was telling stories about her time performing at the Opry. And she had a nice little crowd of folks there to see her. And she introduced them.
And many of them were “also Southern gospel singers.”
I put that in quotes because it’s also important to realize that, in Nashville, if someone’s Christianity comes up in ways that seem weirdly unbidden, something weird and unbidden is about to go down. Don’t get me wrong, there are 99 million ways someone’s Christianity might come up and it doesn’t set off warning signals.
“Where’d you get that fabulous sweater?” “Oh, our church had this awesome craft fair.”
“Oh, Betsy, a woman at church was telling me about this amazing book you should read.”
“Are you okay?” “Yeah, yeah, I’m just still trying to process our pastor’s sermon.”
“I’m going to Belize with my mission group!”
etc.
But you live here long enough and you start to recognize the wholly inappropriate bringing up of one’s Christianity and the dude she was about to bring on stage “also being a Southern Gospel singer”? Something about it just struck me as “Oh, lord, this is about to get weird.”
And it did!
They knew each other from back in the day. They’d sang together frequently and recorded some demos together. He was there, last night, with his wife and large passel of children. He pretended, briefly, that he didn’t want to intrude and then, he got up at the mic and they began to sing.
I should mention that, for those of you who weren’t alive in the 70s and early 80s, you might have this idea that music back then was all Zeppelin and disco and punk and Southern Rock and Outlaw country–each a genre of music that, though not always mixing well, shared a “Fuck you, outsiders” ethos, though the outsiders were often listeners of the other genres.
That is because those of us who did live through that era have been protecting you from the truth. And I will just say that, no matter what song this woman sang, it ended up sounding like the Music of the 70s and 80s We are Trying to Pretend Never Existed.
And so, when she started that tinkly synth beginning “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love for You” I almost whooped with delight! I mean, no, I could live my whole life never hearing that song again, but it was perfect. And then she started going into how this was their song, their favorite song to sing together.
And my eyes must have gotten big and the guy across the table was like “What?” and I laughed. The Butcher said, “This must be what crashing a wedding is like.”
And then they began to sing.
And the dude across from me was like “Who would sing this song with a woman in front of his wife?!” And, in fact, as it went on, the wife seemed to grow more and more visibly uncomfortable.
It was, quite possible, the strangest thing I’d seen all week, these two folks singing this song that was deeply important to them in a way that suggested a long, intimate history, in front of dude’s wife who seemed to be quietly praying that the kids weren’t paying attention.
Anyway, then late they played “Why Me Lord” and folks at the table were all “Oh god, why do we have to listen to a hymn?” and I tried to argue that it wasn’t a hymn when Kris Kristofferson did it, but then I realized I was completely wrong. It’s just that, when Krisofferson does it, it sounds like a hymn that is appropriate for singing over beers.
Anyway, you can’t use your Groupon on things like All You Can Eat Shrimp. Fair warning.
Tiny Cat Pants 
Not to invalidate your grumpiness about all the singing in restaurants, if you’re living in a place where someone will sing Kristofferson to you over all you can eat shrimp, that is pretty damn cool!
As the wife of a musician let me theorize that when she said “You can’t go anywhere in Nashville and hear live music with your dinner,” she might have meant “You could not hear me, because no one would book me.”
And when the husband and I go out, we usually don’t go hear other musicians, I totally sympathize with wanting to have a conversation over food now and then.
Being raised fundamentalist in the late 70s/early 80s, I heard lots of cheesy Christian music. Never minded the straight-out Jesus freak stuff (some of it had a weird dark vibe, like 2nd Chapter of Acts), but that Amy Grant era was a real whipping.
O.C. it sounds cool in theory, but in practice, when they manage to turn a song that should wrench your heart right out and make it seem like “You Light Up My Life’s” blander sibling, it’s not so great.
Emjaybee, exactly. I honestly think you could make a killing in Nashville having a music-free bar where people can just talk and be heard.