Nashville 1980 (Part I)
I don't remember now how I went about finding a place to live on my first sojourn in Nashville, but according to my "Captain's Log" I was living in this house by the night of 5 January 1980. Although the street number escapes me, the place is on 17th Avenue South, part of the famed "Music Row."
The house had been remodeled by the time this picture was taken, and it had been painted. I remember it as being sort of a yellowish tan color. Two large apartments were downstairs; you can see them here--the windows on either side of the entrance. On the right side of the house was a doorway, just inside of which a set of stairs rose to the second floor. Up there were three one-room "apartments" that shared a bath and a kitchen.
See the set of widows on the upper left-hand portion of the front of the house? Those weren't there. At that time, the area where the windows are was a kind of open porch-balcony accessible only through a window that led from my room. I had a single room, maybe 10x12 with a bed and a dresser. It might have had a desk as well, but I don't remember it. I'm sure it was a rather nasty place, but I lived there for some six months for a monthly rent of $109.
The apartment building visible in the right-hand portion of the picture wasn't there then; instead a rather dark little house sat there, and in it lived a rough-and-tumble minor country music star named Joe Sun. Two or three houses up the street, in the direction the car in the picture is pointing, was a big house that was home to the offices (and maybe a recording studio) owned by Waylon Jennings. Belmont College, where I was going to school, was three or four blocks further on past Waylon's place.
In my "Captain's Log" for stardate 010.680 (6 January 1980) I began with the following: "Tonight is my second night as a citizen of Nashville, Tennessee. It's as good as can be expected of the situation I have put myself into. That being off campus in an upstairs one-room apartment. So far it has been boring and very lonely but I have chosen this for work purposes, school and songwriting. . . ."
The house had been remodeled by the time this picture was taken, and it had been painted. I remember it as being sort of a yellowish tan color. Two large apartments were downstairs; you can see them here--the windows on either side of the entrance. On the right side of the house was a doorway, just inside of which a set of stairs rose to the second floor. Up there were three one-room "apartments" that shared a bath and a kitchen.
See the set of widows on the upper left-hand portion of the front of the house? Those weren't there. At that time, the area where the windows are was a kind of open porch-balcony accessible only through a window that led from my room. I had a single room, maybe 10x12 with a bed and a dresser. It might have had a desk as well, but I don't remember it. I'm sure it was a rather nasty place, but I lived there for some six months for a monthly rent of $109.
The apartment building visible in the right-hand portion of the picture wasn't there then; instead a rather dark little house sat there, and in it lived a rough-and-tumble minor country music star named Joe Sun. Two or three houses up the street, in the direction the car in the picture is pointing, was a big house that was home to the offices (and maybe a recording studio) owned by Waylon Jennings. Belmont College, where I was going to school, was three or four blocks further on past Waylon's place.
In my "Captain's Log" for stardate 010.680 (6 January 1980) I began with the following: "Tonight is my second night as a citizen of Nashville, Tennessee. It's as good as can be expected of the situation I have put myself into. That being off campus in an upstairs one-room apartment. So far it has been boring and very lonely but I have chosen this for work purposes, school and songwriting. . . ."
posted by mac | 7:45 AM
3 Comments:
28 years ago...I can't believe how the years have come and gone.
a one room apartment in Music Row - that was very daring!!!
If I thought of it as daring back then, I don't remember. It was certainly exciting.
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