Back in the Saddle
Vocalist/actor Herb Jeffries has been a matinee idol on both the silver screen and bandstand; he’s also been a club owner, recording star and folklorist. At 83, he could be content simply to regale fans and relatives with anecdotes and let others determine his place in history. Instead, Jeffries may be as busy now as he was in the late ’30s, during his years onscreen as “The Bronze Buckaroo.” He’s featured on a new 10-song CD, The Bronze Buckaroo (Rides Again) (Warner/Reprise), on which his still formidable, rich baritone voice is paired with performers ranging from country types Michael Martin Murphey, Little Texas and Cleve Francis to jazz-gospel a cappella stylists Take 6 and their predecessors the Mills Brothers to actor/clarinetist Hal Linden.
Although Jeffries performed cowboy numbers in every one of his films, The Bronze Buckaroo is his first recorded collection of Western songs. It’s also the culmination of his lengthy interest in African-American Western lore, which he has researched and pursued since learning how to ride and rope as a youth during summers on his grandfather’s farm in California.
“After the Civil War, a lot of the freed slaves went west,” Jeffries says, his voice warming as he discusses blacks’ overlooked role on the frontier. “They’d already established their ability to work with cattle and horses, and to live in peace and dignity with Native Americans throughout the South and Southeast. They were totally at home on the plains; you know, it’s been documented time and time again that one of every four cowboys was black, and not just by black writers, but most of the time by white historians.”
While he has always had a deep interest in cowboy songs, Jeffries earned his initial fame and recognition through big band and swing-era jazz. Born in Detroit, he got his earliest professional experience singing in a neighborhood combo that performed both locally and on radio. After moving to Chicago, Jeffries received an invitation to perform with pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines, which led to spotlight appearances on Hines’ radio broadcasts from the city’s Grand Terrace Hotel. These national shows got the attention of Duke Ellington, who picked him for a four-month tour in 1935.
Jeffries had been able to avoid the ravages of segregation as a child; both his neighborhood and schools had been integregated in the Midwest. But when he began touring the South with Hines (whom he rejoined after the Ellington stint ended), he witnessed state-mandated discrimination. “Blacks couldn’t go to white theaters, and they didn’t even own their own theaters,” he says. “Most of the theaters at that time in the black neighborhoods were owned by whites who saw an opportunity to make some money. A lot of those theaters were showing cowboy movies, and I’d see little kids saying things like ‘I can’t be Tom Mix.’ I said to myself, why shouldn’t there be black cowboys in film, when I’d read and known for myself that there were all kinds of cowboys in the West?”
Jeffries spent a year trying to raise funds for an all-black cowboy film. “I took my idea around to many black millionaires across the country,” he says. “I went to Chicago, to Oklahoma, to the richest people I knew in the black community. None of them could see the value of the project. Finally, I went to California, and I found someone to do it.” In the end, though, it was white filmmakers rather than black ones who made Harlem on the Prairie.
The 1936 film was such a hit that three more sequels followed: Two Gun Man From Harlem and Harlem Rides the Range in 1937, and The Bronze Buckaroo in 1938. Jeffries originated the “Bronze Buckaroo” moniker due to his frustration with the filmakers, who “kept putting ‘Harlem’ in the title of all those films because they felt if you said ‘Harlem,’ people knew you were talking about black folk.” He did multiple duties in his films, performing most of the stunts, doing all the riding, and composing most of the songs.
Jeffries’ career as a balladeer and band vocalist beckoned, however. He and Ellington reunited during the late ’30s at the Greystone Ballroom in Detroit; one of his films had been showing at the Apollo during an Ellington engagement, and the bandleader approached him about becoming the band’s featured male vocalist. Jeffries’ bombastic yet controlled singing style was featured on several Ellington recordings and on a few of his own releases in the late ’40s. His biggest hit, “Flamingo,” eventually sold over 14 million copies.
“I called my sound black, brown and beige,” he says. “My three primary influences were Bing Crosby, Paul Robeson and Harlan Lattimore, who sang with the Don Redman Orchestra. I utilized Crosby’s forte with low notes, caressed and sustained tones like Lattimore, and admired Robeson’s robust sound.”
Jeffries stayed with Ellington until 1942, when he enlisted in the Army. Upon his discharge, there were major changes in both music and film. Bop’s harmonic innovations and the coming of R&B and rock ’n’ roll eventually displaced many great swing-era singers. Segregated black theaters gave way to integrated movie houses, and the audience for African-American westerns disappeared, as did the interest from white filmmakers.
Jeffries had one more mild hit in the mid-’40s, “You, You Darlin’,” but by 1950 he had relocated to Paris. He stayed there nearly a decade, using his discharge pay to open a nightclub called the Flamingo, which became a major tourist and entertainment attraction. A 1953 Life magazine article garnered him several offers to return home. He chose only to make sporadic club visits until 1959, when he came back to Los Angeles permanently.
He opened another Flamingo club there and began to sort through a variety of offers for both films and television. He appeared in such television shows as The Virginian and Hawaii Five-O and recorded for a number of labels. He also participated in several documentaries on the black role in the West, including PBS’ California Gold and WTBS’ The Untold West..
In the late ’70s, Jeffries began performing and conducting a 16-piece band at performing arts centers in Los Angeles, which he continues to do to this day. He’s extremely enthusiastic about his current CD project and stays aware of his musical contemporaries. He calls Take 6 “the greatest singing unit I’ve ever heard” and praises Warner Western label head Jim Ed Norman’s willingness to get his input. “I had a lot of anxiety as well as great anticipation about this project; [Nashville is] a different avenue of music than where I’d been for 50 years. But when we got together, it worked.”
Besides the CD, there’s now talk of a possible Jeffries network series and an autobiography. He dismisses retirement talk, saying, “Everybody’s going to retire one day, six feet under. As long as God blesses me and lets me have this gift, I’m going to use it. I’m just starting my new career; I’m the new kid on the block in country music.”
Vague Interest
A Sept. 15 show at 12th & Porter kicks off the release of The Field, the new CD by Max Vague, whose earlier CDs Love in a Thousand Faces and S.O.S. The Party’s Over received much local airplay on WRLT. The Field is said to feature a much more accessible sound than the dense technopop of Vague’s debut and the ambient, acoustic-based CD that followed. The self-produced record (on Vague’s MetroLord label) will be on sale at the Elliston Place CD shop Safe Psychs exclusively for its first few weeks of release; after that, it should be available at other local record stores.
The win-nah and cham-peenDan Dowling and the Metrotones, who recently took first place in the Best Unsigned Blues Band in Nashville contest, sponsored by Music City Blues. Dowling, a guitar teacher at Cotten Music, and his band received the honor Aug. 7 at 3rd & Lindsley, where they won a showdown with finalLefty Ken and the Blues Rats and Dave Duncan and the Resonators. For his trouble, Dowling and his Metrotones get gigs at the Ace of Clubs and 3rd & Lindsley along with 10 hours of recording time at Poppi Studio; in addition, the band wins a trip to Memphis to compete in the International Blues Talent Competition on Oct. 8. Bring home the gold, guys.
Several Nashville bands will travel to St. Louis Sept. 14-16 for the , an offshoot of the phenomenally successful South by Southwest music festival held every spring in Austin. Local artists performing during the three-day fest include Doug Hoekstra (who has a new CD for release due in early 1996), Tim Carroll and Stone Deep (which, according to band member Glen Cummings, now features new bassist Sam Tucker and “a CD’s worth” of new songs). Headquarters for the event will be the Adam’s Mark Hotel on the riverfront; for more information, call (512) 467-7979.
Rockabilly legend Sleepy LaBeef recently capped his 60th birthday celebration with a wild and woolly stay in Nashville. In town to donate several items to the Country Music Hall of Fame—including his trademark cowboy hat, his coffee mug, his boots, and a copy of his first single on the Starday label, “I’m Through,” dating back some four decades—LaBeef was greeted with both a reception at the Hall of Fame and a “surprise” birthday bash at the Ace of Clubs.
On hand were friends, fans and former band members from all over the country, including drummer D.J. Fontana, rockabilly performer Gene Dunlap, and esteemed music writer Peter Guralnick, who not only championed LaBeef persuasively in his classic book Lost Highway but coproduced his last album, . By all accounts, LaBeef, backed by a combo featuring local bassist Dave Pomeroy, belted out a brain-battering selection of classics without even breaking for breath; the evening extended into one long, white-hot jam session.
Cross Country
(Bloodshot Records)
The booklet that accompanies Hell-Bent, Bloodshot Records’ second volume of “insurgent country music,” boasts the following statement of purpose: “We come to exhume Hank (Williams), not to canonize him.” This claim may be overstate matters a bit, but several of the performers on the Chicago indie’s latest collection push country themes and conventions far enough to suggest that they’re at least dancing on top of Hank’s grave.
Bloodshot’s inaugural compilation, For a Life of Sin, featured country and country-influenced artists with ties to the Windy City; showcases performers from Brooklyn to San Francisco, but despite its geographic reach, it finds alumni from its predecessor nearly stealing the show. The Bottle Rockets’ folk-anthemic flood saga “Get Down” and Robby Fulks’ “She Took a Lot of Pills (and Died)” have classic written all over them, while “Bad Times Are Coming Round Again,” the new single from the Jon Langford-led Waco Brothers, is one of the few pieces of rockabilly social analysis to surface in ages. Fulks’ original sounds as if it could have been penned for local favorites BR5-49.
Among newcomers to the Bloodshot fold, The Starkweathers, World Famous Blue Jays, Tarnation and Nashvillian Gwil Owen also stand out, but it’s Richard Buckner’s “22,” a fatalistic tale of love that reaches beyond the grave, that may prove to be the record’s highlight. Over an Appalachian blues complete with rattlesnake hiss and Lloyd Maines’ droning, death-toll banjo, a ghoulish-voiced Buckner assumes the role of a brokenhearted 22-year-old recounting his recent suicide. By song’s end, Buckner has all but bridged the gap between mountain music patriarch Dock Boggs and slacker wunderkind Beck.
The 17-song compilation’s only drawback is a certain sameness of sound, especially on the more rock and pop-oriented material, but that’s hardly a problem on a collection of originals this strong. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the record is the fact that it unearths performers as estimable as local heroes Greg Garing and BR5-49, thus demonstrating that nontraditional neo-traditionalists of vision and talent aren’t the exclusive province of Lower Broadway—they can be found in places as disparate as Tempe, Ariz., and Festus, Mo. Still, maybe Bloodshot’s next project will assemble a volume of nationally underexposed local mavericks that can go head-to-head with what liner notes call “the suffocating spew of Nashville hit factories.” Based on the merits of the Chicago indie’s first two collections, Music City and its unsigned treasures would do well to subject themselves to the Bloodshot treatment. (BFW)
Vic Chesnutt, Is the Actor Happy? (Texas Hotel)
Vic Chesnutt’s confessional songwriting and enigmatic wordplay on Is the Actor Happy? recall no one so much as Bob Dylan circa “She Belongs to Me” and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit.” Like Dylan, the Athens, Ga., songwriter hangs whole rafts of emotion on imagery so evocative and, at times, surreal, that even trivialities like soup, swimsuits and subscriptions convey, among other things, tenderness, doubt and bewilderment. Considerable humanity brims throughout, despite the fact that virtually nothing escapes Chesnutt’s painterly and often savage eye for detail.
The record’s musical settings are at once gorgeous and dynamic: Cello, pedal steel guitar and concertina further etch Chesnutt’s uncanny phrasing and oblique portraits onto the mind of the listener. The arrangements are mostly delicate and melancholy, though not entirely so: Several electric guitar passages invoke the Crazy Horse of Neil Young’s sonic youth, while “Onion Soup,” in its own modest way, calls forth Blonde on Blonde anthems like “Visions of Johanna” and “One of Us Must Know.” Chesnutt’s latest is a seductive and beautiful record. (BFW)
Vee Vee (Alias)
When Archers of Loaf’s second album was released at the beginning of this year, it received a smattering of good reviews and an otherwise lukewarm response. The buzz on the Chapel Hill group was that they played solid, undistinguished grunge-punk, and, at first listen, Vee Vee does little to change minds, or even catch the ear. It lacks the polish and cool attitude of other recent alternative rock albums, and with its frequent profanity and dissonance, the record is defiantly uncommercial. As the year has worn on, however, Vee Vee’s orneriness has become a selling point, and the album has been passed along like gospel among jaded modern rock fans. Archers of Loaf have gradually become a celebrated band among listeners who have grown tired of hearing their favorite music co-opted. Vee Vee is fast becoming an underground sensation, based on word-of-mouth alone.
What about this album inspires such discipleship? Call it depth, or maybe ballsiness. It’s a full record, put across with an emotionally charged performance. From the opening invocation, “Step Into the Light,” to the closing call-to-arms, “Underachievers March and Fight Song,” Vee Vee pummels the listener with hard, engaging noise and sneaks in subversively angry words beneath the squall. Archers of Loaf’s natural element is the forceful rock anthem, put across with an incisive, unusual electric guitar sound and the throaty shout of lead singer Eric Bachmann. Their songs are richly layered with sound, yet structured in a direct, cohesive way.
In song after song, the band makes musical and lyrical connections that are both witty and scary. In “Let the Loser Melt,” Bachmann equates bad music with bad sex, and in “Nevermind the Enemy” he speaks with glee about “watch(ing) our heroes trip and fall.” Taken together, the lyrics paint a picture of a culture that has been consumed by faddishness, waste and the quest for popularity. The overall effect of Vee Vee is corrosive, as though the Archers were trying to kill, gut, and clear out all the phoniness standing in their way.
Am I reading too much into the album?Perhaps, but when an artist works close to his unconscious and follows his instincts, as the Archers are definitely doing, he can reach truths deeper than he ever intended. Where countless other bands are streamlining the sound of loud guitars and speedy rhythms, Archers of Loaf are defiantly keeping their music discordant and surly, and as a result, Vee Vee is a celebration of all things abrasive and invigorating in good rock ’n’ roll. It’s far and away the best rock album of 1995. (NM)
On With the Show
Rich, indeed, are Music Row’s resources when the Country Music Association can afford to deny award nominations—as it has just done—to Alabama, Randy Travis, Doug Stone, Joe Diffie, Travis Tritt, Collin Raye, Tanya Tucker, Ricky Van Shelton, Trisha Yearwood, Kathy Mattea, Clint Black, Mark Chesnutt, Little Texas, Lorrie Morgan, Tracy Lawrence, Sammy Kershaw, Martina McBride, James House, Tim McGraw, Confederate Railroad, Toby Keith, Neal McCoy, John Anderson and many others of equal distinction. It is a simple case of having only a finite amount of time to expose an infinite amount of talent on this most important of country awards ceremonies.
The big guns in the 1995 CMA showdown are Alan Jackson, who boasts six nominations; Vince Gill and Alison Krauss, each with four; and Shania Twain, who is contending for three honors. Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, John Berry, John Michael Montgomery, George Strait, Patty Loveless, Diamond Rio, George Jones, David Ball, Shenandoah and the Tractors have two nominations each. Final winners will be announced on The 29th Annual CMA Awards special, which is set to air Oct. 4 on CBS-TV.
To note the CMA’s omissions is not to suggest that there is anything sinister about its selection process or that the artists who have been nominated this year are less deserving than those who haven’t been. It’s just the way show biz and politics coalesce. The truth is that the CMA awards have nothing to do with rewarding artistry and everything to do with selling records. In this regard, they are precisely like most other music-based award presentations.
When the CMA awards show was launched in 1968, its primary aim was to gain exposure and respect for country music as a genre. Once this happened, so the logic went, the entire industry would profit. And it has. Now that country has succeeded in making a fair and prosperous name for itself, the primary thrust of the show—at least as participating record labels see it—is to spur album sales by drawing attention to specific acts and songs. Sales figures gathered during the days immediately following the show indicate that this is exactly what happens. Always among the most-watched specials that CBS has to offer, last year’s edition, the CMA says, ranked seventh among the 107 entertainment specials carried on all the networks during the 1994-95 season.
Since 1972, CBS has broadcast the CMA awards show in prime time, first as an hour-long program. In 1976, the special was expanded to 90 minutes. It grew to two hours in 1988, and to its current three-hour format in 1993. But the length of the show has not kept pace with the number of artists who want to be on it and have credible reasons for believing they should be. There are currently around 200 acts on the major country labels. Contrast this vast throng of contenders with the number of appearance slots available on the show, and you get some idea of the traffic jam the show’s producers face.
This year, CMA members were presented with 12 categories into which to make their nominations. Each category, in turn, had slots for five finalists, adding up to a maximum of 60 slots to vie for. If each of the 60 slots housed a different act, it would still leave more than two-thirds of the major-label artists out in the cold. The odds for exposure are further decreased, however, by the fact that in any given year a few particularly popular acts will take several nominations each, just as Jackson, Krauss and Gill have done this year.
To accommodate the acts crowded out by such harsh statistical realities, the show uses some country performers as “presenters.” Others are admitted into group production numbers, and a few new artists are spotlighted in the audience via “bumpers”—those quickie segues in which the acts identify themselves and their current single and invite viewers to “stay tuned” for more of the show.
As you might suspect, when it comes to these awards, the labels are disinclined to leave the fate of their favored acts to the gods. Although the CMA officially discourages bloc voting and has even taken steps to curb the record companies’ dominance of the process, it is still commonplace. Label heads routinely demand that their employees—whose CMA memberships the labels pay for—surrender their unmarked ballots. Having a thick sheaf of such ballots goes a long way toward securing initial nominations and then ensures that the final votes are concentrated only on the acts the label most wants to push. Once the final nominees are announced, both label and independent publicists immediately begin to wheedle and cajole the show’s producers with wondrously inventive arguments as to why their acts should be on the show. Frequently, the labels will “bargain” with the producers by ensuring the cooperation of a big-name act in return for the appearance of a lesser one who is being groomed for greatness.
Just how much muscle the labels have in the overall voting process is impossible to determine since the CMA will not reveal how many of its 7,000 members actually cast ballots. Certainly, the influence is considerable. Artists from small, independent labels almost never get nominated or included on the show. Although the relative prominence of Rounder Records’ Alison Krauss this year might suggest otherwise, it must be noted that two of her four nominations come directly from her participation in major-label projects. In addition, Krauss is such a singular and sought-after talent that it’s impossible for the industry to ignore her, no matter what kind of label she’s on.
Happily, all this behind-the-scenes jockeying has not impaired the quality of the show itself. It gets better each year.
Currents
The Nashville Network has picked Dick Clark Productions to come up with a replacement for its current nightly music-and-talk show, Music City Tonight. The new and as yet unnamed series will have a single host, a new band and bandleader (“who will provide lively interaction with the host,” says TNN), and a new set. The program will debut on or before Jan. 2.
Freedom of Speech
Whether it’s Miami’s booming bass, Compton’s hardcore funk or the freestyle rhymes patented in the South Bronx, hip-hop scenes around the nation are known for their trademark sounds—each boasts a local or regional flavor all its own. Not surprisingly, Nashville—or “Cashville,” as it’s known among hometown rappers—has yet to make its mark on the world of rap. It may only be a matter of time before DJs start sampling the incredible country and R&B records that have been made in this town, but Music City remains one of the last places that anyone would expect to find an MC on the verge of a national breakthrough. That’s just fine with Nashville transplant Dwight Farrell, a.k.a. Count Bass-D, whose engaging raps and synthesis of disparate musical elements defy categorization at nearly every turn.
Born in the Bronx to West Indian missionaries, the 22-year-old rapper cites growing up in his father’s congregation as a formative influence. “I’m a hip-hop musician who started in the church,” says Bass-D. Testimony to this can be heard all over the rapper’s self-produced debut album, Pre-Life Crisis (Chaos/Columbia), due in stores Sept. 13. The refrain on “Sandwiches,” the record’s first single, is based on the baptismal hymn “Wade in the Water,” while “Carmex” appropriates the line about “dangers, toils and snares” from “Amazing Grace,” and the album’s closer, complete with sly mentions of clip-on ties and high jinks on the church bus, fondly remembers time spent in Sunday school.
The spontaneity so prevalent in black worship is also evident on Pre-Life Crisis: Like recent records by Spearhead and The Roots, live instruments galvanize the record’s soulful, jazzy flow. Musicianship is important to Bass-D, a classically trained performer who plays bass, drums and keys—everything except horns and guitar—on the album. “I’m a musician first,” he insists. “I’m not a ‘sample can’ artist. I’m not knocking anybody who samples,” he adds. “[DJs like] Q-Tip, DJ Premiere, Pete Rock and The Large Professor are some of the best musicians in the world. I just don’t need P-Funk to translate my feelings for me. It’s all about freedom.”
Bass-D’s sense of freedom extends to the lyrical content of his record, which, along with side-splitting references to Elroy Jetson and the captain of The Love Boat, stands the gang-sta ethos of ’90s rap on its head. “I wanted my album to be light because I’m like that,” he admits. “I’m not trying to be dangerous or hard.” Indeed, when Bass-D raps at someone’s expense, it’s usually his own. On the refreshingly unmacho “T-Boz Tried to Talk to Me,” he practically pleads with his listeners to believe that, if only fleetingly, singer T-Boz of TLC might have been romantically interested in him. Ever self-aware, Bass-D wryly observes that T-Boz would probably never have settled for a skinny guy like him, especially one who, at that time (in 1992), had no record deal.
Bass-D’s lack of “hardness” doesn’t mean that he’s not serious: “Broke Thursday,” the closest thing to a straight rap on the record, deals unflinchingly with leaner times when the artist couldn’t afford bus fare and was almost arrested for trying to steal a Hostess snack cake. “A lot of the shit [on my record] was hard to say,” he admits. “I didn’t have to say it. When I signed my record deal I had nine cents in my pocket—no bank account. I still have that nine cents in my pocket today. I don’t ever want to forget that.”
Issues of personal character and integrity are important to Bass-D, so much so that they figured prominently into his choice of a stage name, which incorporates the “D” from Dwight, his given name, while also paying tribute to the late jazz legend Count Basie. “Count Basie was a class act,” notes the rapper. “I can’t think of another guy whose music was appreciated as much and whose reputation is still intact.” Bass-D acknowledges that he has a long way to go before achieving the other Count’s level of respectability, but he’s working at it. When challenged about his portrayal of women, among other things, as food to be consumed and fertile ground to be plowed and harvested, his response is honest and not without regret. “Those are feelings that I’ve felt,” he confides. “I’m not proud of it, but I never thought I’d get a record deal. I never thought anyone would hear it. It was like publishing my diary.”
While Count Basie’s legacy grounds Bass-D’s moral vision, the bandleader is not among the rapper’s primary musical influences, which are remarkably diverse—he boasts “more styles than Elizabeth Taylor has divorces”—including the funk-lite of Earth, Wind and Fire and the melodic soft-rock of Kenny Loggins and The Carpenters. Latter-day hip-hop stars like Warren G and Craig Mack can also be heard in Bass-D’s mix, but the artist for which the MC reserves ultimate respect, particularly for his rhymes, values and longevity, is KRS-One. “In hip-hop, you only last for one, maybe two, albums,” observes Bass-D. “[KRS-One] lasted for eight.” The wise counsel of rapper Biz Markie, known more for his sampling and humorous wordplay than his deep insight, has also shaped Bass-D’s musical approach. “Biz Markie really helped me see that I could come into this hip-hop game and be myself—that, more than anything else, it’s the music.”
The question remains: What’s Count Bass-D doing in the country music capital of the world? Why is he pursuing his hip-hop dream here when he was born in the Boogie Down Bronx, home of KRS-One and only a stone’s throw away from the avuncular Biz Markie? The Nashville newcomer cites Music City’s world-class recording studios, as well as the lack of competition on the local rap scene, as motivating factors. Ultimately, however, he chose Nashville—or, rather, Murfreesboro—on the advice of the late Kenny K, onetime associate of Oakland funkateers Digital Underground. “Kenny taught me more about being in the studio than anyone else. He said, ‘If you can get into MTSU, you can finagle your way to make a demo and get your degree at the same time.’ ”
K’s strategy definitely paid off: Shortly after Bass-D arrived in Murfreesboro, he started hosting a hip-hop video hour, called on the school’s TV station and found himself with ample opportunities to work in the studio. Still, despite the fact that he attended school and recorded his album in Middle Tennessee, the rapper has received more attention nationally, including enthusiVibe, The Source and than in his recently adopted hometown. Locally, he knows what he’s up against—he knows that he’s swimming upstream in Nashville, a town that’s not exactly known for supporting performers who fall into the “urban music” category. Bass-D remains philosophical. “It could all end tomorrow,” he points out, “especially when you start dealing with the realities of the music business.” For now, anyway, he’s enjoying himself, living, as one of his songs puts it, “comfortable, like a Birkenstock.”
The advent of the World Wide Web—once a small part of the ’Net, and now its dominant medium—has been an astounding revolution in information technology. From its early days, when it was a way to present information exclusively to astronomers, to the current day with Netscape Communications Corporation’s bright star rising to unparalleled heights in the stock market just weeks ago, the Web has most certainly taken on a life of its own.
Industry analysts predict that by 1998, if everything goes as it is now, the Web will be drawing nearly 30 million users a day. This estimate has attracted both large corporations with a few thousand dollars to spend and leaner public relations firms with the wish to do something “different” for their clients. It comes as no surprise, then, that Nashville’s own public relations folks would concoct a plan to sell Nashville on the ’Net.
The Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau has established a foothold on the Web specifically to attract two demographic groups that could bring money to the Midstate: business owners and tourists. Drawn in to the NCVB’s Web site, those two groups will see Music City plugged as the best place to vacation or hold a convention.
The NCVB hopes the Internet’s international users will find Nashville a nice place—before they ever even fly here. “Nationally and internationally, the hospitality industry is extremely competitive,” says Butch Spyridon, NCVB vice president. “Therefore, it is vital that we seek out innovative ways to market the many unique facets of Nashville which make it an ideal leisure and convention destination.”
The Web site was produced by The Creative Syndicate, a company located, ironically enough, in Brentwood. It’s a well defined site, formatted like the NCVB’s direct-mail magazine, the From the site, a user can point and click to access information about attractions, events, hotels, dining—you name it.
Of course, there’s a constant plug about the city’s convention industry. To receive a call from an NCVB representative, users interested in hosting a Nashville convention simply fill out a form describing the convention’s size and other information. It’s clear that the Bureau is relying on this interactivity to bring money into Music City—but this time, by wire.
The NCVB’s Web site sports very colorful graphics just about everywhere you look. But sometimes the information you really want to find is buried deep within the site, forcing you to look for it by browsing. A search button would be a nice addition. This site also boasts the most confusing host name I think I’ve ever seen. You can check out this site by directing your browser to http://nashville.musiccityusa.com/tour. Say that five times and try not to get tongue-tied.
Reading, Writing and... “C”?
Ever since the advent of the first Apple II computers in schools, everyone has known that kids will always have the upper hand when it comes to programming the family VCR. Now there’s a chance for Mom and Dad to learn a little technology too.
Futurekids, a national chain of computer learning centers, has rolled into Brentwood Place shopping center, aiming to give kids and adults alike a better understanding of their PCs. The company has operated successful classes in other cities on such diverse topics as keyboarding, computer-assisted math and robotics.
Classes are offered primarily to kids ranging from preschoolers to teenagers. Parents, however, should also consider Futurekids’ adult classes: In a world where computers provide children with the same entertainment value as television, it pays to have at least a working knowledge of home computers—especially if you want to be a responsible parent. While lawmakers scramble to put tight, and possibly unconstitutional, controls over what sort of information is passed over the Internet, a little bit of parental education may be a viable alternative—this type of class can help a parent understand how to monitor what their kids see via the Internet. Not to mention the fact that they’ll have a bit more to discuss with their kids at the dinner table every night.
Futurekids can be reached at 221-5046.
Strummin’ Along
Last week I told you about Gruhn Guitars’ leap onto the Web. While they aren’t open for business there as of yet, you can still keep tabs on the site. Take a look at http://www.gruhn.com/~gruhn. If it truly has all it promises, this site, scheduled to open Aug. 21, will be amazing—and it will draw quite a crowd.
Joel Moses can be reached via e-mail at joel@moses.com.
