{"id":305,"date":"2019-09-26T19:30:33","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T19:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/universitypress\/?p=305"},"modified":"2019-09-26T19:31:09","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T19:31:09","slug":"vuplaylist-they-came-to-nashville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/universitypress\/2019\/09\/26\/vuplaylist-they-came-to-nashville\/","title":{"rendered":"VUPlaylist: They Came to Nashville"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nWe’re kicking off our new blog with a celebration of the country music books that we’ve co-published over the past two decades with the Country Music Foundation Press. <\/em>In honor of our country music titles, and coinciding with the premiere of Ken Burns’s new<\/em> Country Music<\/a> documentary,<\/em> we’ve put together playlists that draw from a selection of our country music books.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Our country music playlist series comes to a close with today’s playlist (below), which takes its inspiration from They Came to Nashville<\/em><\/a> by Marshall Chapman.<\/span><\/p>\n

In They Came to Nashville<\/em>, Chapman\u2014a musician, songwriter, and author with nearly a dozen albums and a bestselling memoir\u2014captures the personal stories of musicians who have shaped the modern history of music in Nashville. Their tribulations and triumphs are revealed against the backdrop of an always-evolving Music City, as Chapman sits down with influential figures like Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Miranda Lambert, and a dozen other successful musicians, to\u00a0ask what brought each of them to Nashville and what inspired them to persevere. The book culminates with Chapman’s hilarious and determined effort to schedule a proper interview with Willie Nelson. Instead, she’s brought along on Willie’s raucous 2008 tour and winds up on stage with him in Texas singing “Good Hearted Woman.”
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In the Prologue to the book, Chapman explains what drove her to ask the fundamental questions of They Came to Nashville<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Because Nashville is a music center\u2014like London, New York, Austin, and Los Angeles\u2014it has always been a magnet for dreamers, iconoclasts, poets, pickers, and prophets from all over. I\u2019ve lived here forty years and can count on one hand the number of natives I\u2019ve met. It\u2019s true. The great majority of us are from somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Lately, I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about this\u2014why anyone would pick up and leave everything they\u2019ve ever known to pursue a dream. What were they looking for? What were they running away from? What did they imagine would happen?<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re young, you don\u2019t think about it. You just do it. Now that I\u2019m older, whenever I think back to the young girl I was\u2014inexperienced but ready, innocent, wild, and full of dreams\u2014I\u2019m amazed at the energy and gumption it took to pursue this path I\u2019ve chosen.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, whenever I\u2019ve found myself at a dinner party or just kicking back with artist\/musician friends, I can\u2019t help it. I start asking all sorts of questions, encouraging them to talk about what brought them to Nashville.<\/p>\n

These are the stories.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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