Classic rock in Nashville, Tennessee

Recently I read an article on the brain that stated that to keep the brain sharp one needs, apart from good nutrition and physical exercises, to learn new things and have a variety of experiences. This will help the aging brain's neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt. Experiences change a brain's physical structure and keep it young. In the last three weeks I certainly had a variety of experiences. The day after arriving in Georgia I went to the Marietta chalk festival, see my last post here. Then at the end of my two-week stay there I traveled north to visit apple orchards. The next day I walked up trails in a remote state park in the North Georgia Mountains, followed the next day by a visit to the largest and most prosperous plantation and historic home of Chief Vann, the 1790s Cherokee Indian leader and wealthy businessman. Upon my return to Nashville my son-in-law called me and invited me to join him and his visiting cousins to attend the Nashville Symphony on Thursday November 9th. His cousins, from Goa, India, enjoy music and this was a different type of concert. It was to be the rock band the Jefferson Starship accompanied by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

Of course, I was ready to go. The Jefferson Starship is an offshoot of the original Jefferson Airplane group formed in San Francisco in 1965. The Jefferson Airplane became a pioneering "psychedelic" rock band and was the first to be known internationally. My late husband and I attended their concerts in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I just looked in a bag I brought back from my garage in Georgia and found several posters from that time, including the August 1966 concert at the Fillmore Auditorium which we attended. The Jefferson Airplane also headlined the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, which we also attended. They headlined other famous concerts, such as the Woodstock Music and Art Fair and the Altamont Free Concert of 1969. Two of their songs "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" are among the 500 Greatest Songs of all time, and were played on Friday.

One of the Jefferson Airplane's musicians was Paul Kantner, who when he split from the group in the 1970s founded the Jefferson Starship band. Their catalog included their own songs as well as rock classics. Grace Slick, the Jefferson Airplane's lead singer, joined the Jefferson Starship and kept singing her well known tunes such as Somebody to Love, as well as White Rabbit, which she had written. Kantner died in 2016, age 74. Grace Slick was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, wrote a book and retired from her musical career. Now 84 years old she lives in California and paints. In the pictures below she is to the right of Janis Joplin, in the 1960's, and now in her Malibu studio.

Below, some of her paintings.

The Jefferson Starship keeps touring the US and internationally (they were in Japan last January.) They had 15 energized performances scheduled for 2023 and one of them is this weekend with the Nashville Symphony at the Schermerhorn Center, shown below. We had seats on the balcony on the left.

First we parked the car near the symphony hall then walked a couple of blocks to the Assembly Food Hall for dinner. While going there we went down Broadway. It is Nashville's famous street packed with many places to drink and listen to live music. It was raining but there still were many people queuing to enter all the bars and honky tonks pumping their music out into the street. They had the walls and windows open so the music was quite loud. The bands and singers could be seen on stages and people dancing on the floor. All types of music could be heard: classic country, rockabilly (southern style rock,) blues, guitar, karaoke, old time music, bluegrass, etc. These places are open every day from 10 am to 3 am and there is no cover charge to enter them. Even being Thursday night with rain, they were packed. Below is Broadway at night and on a weekend.

Many musicians and singers live in Nashville and the surrounding areas. I hear it is not uncommon to see famous country stars come into a club and stage an impromptu performance. Tourists come here from the US and overseas. Nashville also has a reputation as being a top destination for bachelorette and bachelor parties. They come from all over the country and ride in open air buses down Broadway, wearing cowboy's hats and boots, drinking and carrying on loudly. They ride in "transportainment" vehicles, some can pedal while drinking. These vehicles can be buses, tractors, trucks with hot tubs and so on. Click on collage to enlarge. Photos below courtesy the Honky-Tonk Express.

Being a rainy Thursday night in November, I only saw about 3 of those party vehicles - they come mostly in spring and summer weekends. We reached the Assembly Food Hall and took the escalator upstairs. This is a European style multi-level culinary and entertainment place. It is large, about 100,000 square feet with 30+ eateries and bars, three live performance stages and a sky deck with views of Broadway. We decided to eat Vietnamese food. It was very tasty as each restaurant has been hand-picked for its high quality food.

Then it was time to go to the concert. The Jefferson Starship band consists of co-founding member David Freiberg (rhythm guitar/vocals) who also co-founded Quicksilver Messenger Service (another San Francisco band from 1965) - David is 85 years old. Another classic member is Donny Baldwin on drums, 72, then Chris Smith on keyboard with bass, Jude Gold the lead guitar, and singer Cathy Richardson. In the photo below, Donny Baldwin is on the right, Cathy Richardson with Jude Gold on top of collage and below, David Freiberg on left next to Chris Smith and Jude Gold.

In January 2020 I had been to this Schermerhorn Symphony Center to see "Salute to Vienna," a New Year Viennese Style celebration - see my post here. My daughter had come with me then, but this time she is attending a medical conference in Miami Beach, Florida, and had to miss this performance. The design of this concert hall provides vivid acoustical clarity. During the year a broad range of classical, pop, jazz, and family concerts are offered here. The sound was truly very clear.

Being on the balcony we could see both the symphony musicians and the Jefferson Starship group quite well. I tried to take some photos with my cell phone. They are not very good but they give an idea of the show.

Cathy Richardson has great vocal abilities and delivers vigorous harmonies. David at 85 has retained his sensational vocals. This band does not sound like a "senior" band, that's for sure. Photo below courtesy Stefan Nilsson.

David Freiberg is not the only star performing in his 80s. Many artists of that age have also kept their energy and vocal strength, such as Paul McCartney of the Beatles, at 81, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, at 80 and Ringo Starr who is still touring at 83. Their sound is still fresh and relevant. Below on right Mick Jagger, and Ringo, David on left and Paul.

Jefferson Starship performed for about 45 minutes with sets from the Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship classics and their newer songs. Then there was a 15 minute break followed by another 45 minutes of music. I wish I could have a video sample of this performance but I found a short on YouTube of Jude Gold playing Empryonic Journey. He is truly a super guitar player. This had been a terrific show with excellent music from the 60s, 70, 80s to the present, as they are still evolving. Their music was full of rhythm, energy and joy. It was a thrill to listen to them and a lot of fun.

The Smith-Gilbert Gardens in the spring

Last Tuesday, March 16, 2021, I drove to the Georgia house. On Wednesday I drove to the accountant in Woodstock, GA., in Cherokee County, north of my house, and gave her all my receipts to prepare my income taxes. The next day I read the filing date had been moved to May 17 instead of April 15. At least I won't be late. Then I went back to clearing out the study that I had started last month. There were 4 large cartons on top of each other I had been reluctant (or afraid) to check. As I thought, they contained old magazines, bills, receipts, letters, children drawings and so forth. I started placing the magazines in recycling bags but then realized that some were quite old. The library told me they are not accepting donations at this time and Goodwill does not take magazines.

When I saw the two magazines above I thought to check on eBay to find a price - the 1989 Time magazine Trump issue is selling up to $55 and the Ronald Reagan November 17, 1980 up to $25. I guess I'll keep them. There was also an August 1981 issue of the French magazine Paris Match featuring Princess Diana on her honeymoon. In the magazine I had placed 3 postcards of her 29 July 1981 wedding to Prince Charles. I remember I had flown to Paris to visit my mother that summer and stopped first in London for several days - where I picked up the postcards.

In two days I was able to fill 10 large plastic bags as I did throw away a large number of magazines and assorted papers. It felt liberating to bring them to the high school recycling bin.

Yesterday morning, March 20, 2021, was a bit cool and windy but very sunny, a good day for the start of spring. After going through all these old cartons and dust of ages getting some fresh air sounded quite enticing. I remembered the Smith-Gilbert Gardens my late husband and I visited often in the past. In 2011 I had found out that these gardens were only 4.5 miles from our house. I wrote 6 blog posts on them. You may like to read the history of the gardens in my first post dated August 31, 2011, "A Secret Garden in Cobb County, GA, part 1." I showed more of the gardens in part 2 and part 3. Subsequent posts were written to show the gardens in summer "End of Summer at the Smith-Gilbert Gardens" in the fall "Return to Smith-Gilbert Gardens" and finally "Smith-Gilbert Gardens in Winter." I had not written a post for spring and needed to remedy that. I arrived at the gardens before 10 am on Saturday. Unfortunately I had left my good Nikon and Canon cameras in Nashville, but still had my pocket camera and cell phone.

Being the first day of spring I was not sure there would be many blooms to see. But daffodils were plentiful. (Click on collage to enlarge.)

I had forgotten how many sculptures were placed among the plants and paths. The "untitled" sphere by Grace Knowlton (American 1932-2020) looked happy surrounded by a brilliant carpet of daffodils.

There were only two other visitors - two young ladies in their spring outfits taking photographs of themselves.

It had been at least five years since I visited the gardens and noticed some changes. The wood benches had been replaced by metal benches. There was now a small children play area. The rock garden had grown and grey pebbles/stones had been placed on pathways - making it a bit difficult to walk.

The little stream running into the waterfall was there, lovely still, with many birds flying around.

When we had come to the gardens in winter I had seen some camellias blooming, but nothing like the blooms I saw yesterday. Along the path I'd see one bush covered with blooms, take pictures, then there was another one, with more blooms, then another one. Some of them blooming profusely, all of them exquisite. I could not stop taking pictures and wished I had my good cameras with me.

There were a couple of attractive early spring blooming magnolia trees - a tall pink one covered with large petals,

and a white magnolia tree with star-like flowers, a Loebner Magnolia "Spring Snow." I was able to reach a bloom to smell it. It had a lovely scent.

It was a bit early for azalea bushes but some were starting to flower.

I walked back to the central part of the gardens to sit under blooming trees.

Looking up, it was lovely to only see blooms and blue sky.

After a while I walked back to some other paths and found ... more camellias! One camellia bush was covered with coral-pink blooms - I mean covered. This camellia is named "Rev. John Drayton" - (in extreme top right corner below.) I checked on the reverend on the Net - and was pleased I did! It turns out that the Drayton family founded Magnolia Plantation by the Ashley River in Charleston, South Carolina in 1676. It was a rice plantation at first then it passed later to Rev. John Drayton who planted camellias japonica and created romantic gardens on the plantation. He also introduced azaleas to the United States and opened the gardens to the public in 1870. Magnolia Plantation is now operated as a house museum and gardens (and still in the same family.) They advertize 1,000 camellia cultivars (some historic) on display from mid-November to April. Goodness, I need to drive there someday. You can read about these gardens here - Magnolia Plantation gardens.

Another tree with delicate pink blossoms was called a Prunus Cyclamin Cherry.

Going back to my car I walked by a blooming bonsai tree, a large tree covered with red berries and a plant with leaves of such a vivid green that they almost looked artificial - it all looked of the new spring.

Winter has finally turned into spring. Now with more vaccines and more people vaccinated maybe life with turn back to normal as well. That reminded me of an old song (1965) the group The Byrds used to sing, called "Turn, turn, turn."

Georgia on my mind ...

Georgia is on my mind ... I have to drive back again next week from Nashville to my house in Greater Atlanta for the early voting of the senate runoffs. I already drove twice there to vote last month (500 miles round trip each.)

Georgia is also on everyone's mind because of this important election. Why is this election important? The Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper explained it well in their December 11, 2020 article: Here is part of it: "Why are the Democrats and Republicans flooding Georgia with more than $400 million in television ads? Why has Vice President Mike Pence visited five Georgia cities in two weeks? And why is President-elect Joe Biden taking a day away from building his administration to travel to Atlanta, as he will on Tuesday? It all comes down to Georgia's two U.S. Senate seats, both up for grabs in the Jan. 5 runoffs and now suddenly key to the early success of Biden's presidency. Control of the U.S. Senate rests on the outcome in Georgia." So you understand why Georgia is on everyone's mind right now.

Actually, "Georgia on My Mind" became the state of Georgia's official song on April 24, 1979 when Governor George Busbee signed it into law. Singer Ray Charles (1930-2004,) who had made the song famous, performed it on March 7, 1979, in front of a joint meeting of the GA Senate and House of Representatives. I remember watching him on television that day. The song was originally written by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell in the 1930s; it was one of Ray Charles' (born in Albany, Georgia on Sep. 23, 1930) biggest hits. I watched him again, live, in 1996 when he performed it in Atlanta's Centennial Park during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Below are pictures of Ray Charles in Atlanta in 1979 (courtesy the AJC.)

Georgia on my Mind, now the official anthem of Georgia, has been a very popular song recorded by many artists, among them: Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller, Etta James, Eric Clapton, Peggy Lee, Tom Jones, Oscar Peterson, Willie Nelson, Dean Martin, Gladys Knight, Led Zeppelin, Leon Russell and many more. In 2003 Rolling Stone magazine declared it one of the top 50 greatest songs of all time. You can find a rendition of it from all these artists on YouTube. Below is an early rendition by Ray Charles.

My husband, two daughters and I moved to Atlanta in early 1973 when my husband was offered a position in the then Governor Jimmy Carter's administration. We lived there until the end of 2017. Now I live in Georgia part-time as it is still my main residence; I live in Nashville, Tennessee, the rest of the time. On my blog I have shown many photos taken in various parts of the state (and I'll show several in this post.) For my friends overseas I'll give some information. Georgia is located in the southeastern U.S. It was named after King George II of Britain and was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirtheen Colonies. Below are vintage postcards of Atlanta. (Click on collage to enlarge.)

The US state of Georgia has an area of 59,425 square miles or 153,909 km2. It is about half the size of Italy; population in 2019 was close to 11 million (including 6 million in Greater Atlanta.)

Georgia is known for its peanuts, peaches and pecans. Its poultry and egg production is worth $4 billion and its cotton is the no. 1 row crop value in the state. Below, two lower photos on the right are a cotton field and some cotton photos I took several years ago. In the center are a fresh bag of peanuts and a bag of pecan pralines I received this week from Southern Grace Farms in Enigma, Georgia. It is owned by the McMillan family who, for eight generations (since their Scottish ancestors came in 1774,) has been farming in South Georgia.

Georgia's terrain is very varied with farmland, mountains, coastal beaches, wild areas, swamps, numerous lakes, waterfalls, white water streams and a great river, the Chattahoochee. It truly is a beautiful state and offers a myriad of landscape to phogograph.

My house is in Greater Atlanta, in Cobb County, in the northwest part of the state. I love the sea but it is about a 4 1/2 hour drive from my house, about the same distance as from my GA house to the one in Nashville. The North Georgia Mountains are close though and there are stunning vistas in the Appalachian Mountains. Last year I traveled to Spring Mountain in Fannin County where the Appalachian Trail starts, then goes 2000+ miles to the state of Maine.

Atlanta, the capital city of Georgia, is the birthplace of Coca-Cola and home of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic site. Atlanta has the busiest international airport in the planet. The city of Augusta hosts the famous Masters Golf tournament and the city of Savannah is famed for its lovely historic architecture and leafy public squares. The University of Georgia founded in 1785 is one of the oldest public universities in the nation. In addition to Coca-Cola, Atlanta is the headquarters for several large corporations: Home Depot, Delta, Equifax, Georgia Pacific and UPS.

Even though much of the state was burnt during the Civil War it still has quite a number of antebellum mansions.

One historic house I usually visit at Christmas time for its decoration and in the spring for its quilt show is Bulloch Hall in Roswell, GA. I miss not visiting it this year because of the virus.

Having been born, raised and lived in Paris until I came to San Francisco in the 1960s (where I lived ten years,) most of my life has been in Georgia and I guess I am now a Franco-Georgian (the state that is, not the country.) I like its cuisine and cook many southern dishes. For example every New Year's Day I prepare the traditional Hoppin' John recipe with greens and corn bread for good luck throughout the year.

Other Georgia-themed songs are "Midnight train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight (an Atlanta native) and the Pips and "Rainy Night in Georgia" by Brook Benton, and so many others. One of the early songs I heard was "Georgia" by Elton John in 1978. Elton John lives part time in Atlanta in his luxury high rise condo in the Buckhead area.

What you may not know is that Georgia is the Hollywood of the South. In 2016 more major feature films were made in Georgia than in California (Black Panther, Avengers, The Ballad of Richard Jewell, Lovecraft Country, Ozark, Fast and Furious, Baby Driver, etc.) The Georgia Film Commission started in 1973 with Governor Jimmy Carter who recognized the profitable revenues from the Burt Reynolds' movie "Deliverance." The state offers quite advantageous tax incentives for film productions. Large studios are constantly being built in Georgia to accomodate the growth of this industry. It is not unusual to see actors in Atlanta and other areas. Actually I literally bumped into Clint Eastwood in Savannah some years ago. (See "Savannah's Book ... and Clint Eastwood." Below just two of the several studios. The Atlanta Studio Complex below was for decades the Atlanta Fairgrounds where I used to visit the monthly flea markets.

When I saw that the film "The Blind Side" starring Sandra Bullock had been filmed in Atlanta I had planned to visit local locations from movies and write a post, but then I realized too many films had been filmed here. With the film and television industries and a concentration of high tech companies in the state a more educated work force has turned Georgia blue (Democrat) to the fury of D. Trump. Television series are also set in Georgia like The Walking Dead, Sharp Objects, Stranger Things, Moon and Me, and Sweet Magnolias. I have not watched the Sweet Magnolias series but understand it is filmed in Covington, GA, where Vampire Diaries and In the Heat of the Night were filmed, as well. Looking at the Greek revival mansion from the series I remembered taking its picture several years ago while in Covington, see my post here "Spring in the Deep South, part 1." (The fictional town in the series is Serenity, South Carolina.)

Because of the coronavirus I have not been able to travel very far. For now all my trips will lead me back to Georgia until my house is cleared out - and that will take some time ... so Georgia will stay on my mind.

I'll end up with one of my favorite instrumentals of Georgia on my Mind. It is from my 2019 CD by the UK Peter Frampton Band.

The music we hear now is mostly Christmas Carols or Holiday Music. It will be a bittersweet season as we wish to enjoy it but are filled with desolation at the amount of grief our country and the world is going through because of the coronavirus. I wish you all a Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas and a peaceful holiday season.

Stay safe, wear a mask and keep your distance.