Day 4: Spring Hill Cemetery, Nashville

The first day I was in Nashville I connected with Kevin Paulk (left), with whom I worked 13 years ago on the copy desk of the Nashville Tennesseean (Kevin's recently been laid off from the Tennessean -- see his resume here). Kevin's an expert on old country and bluegrass (see his blog 3 Chords a Day here), and we used to pass slow moments at work chatting on those subjects. He joined me for a visit to Nashville's Spring Hill Cemetery, where lots of country and bluegrass stars have been laid to rest. We also went to Nashville's Old City Cemetery, which is the resting place of some of Nashville's founders, war heroes, statesmen -- and songwriting great Harlan Howard.

Kevin also sent me a link to a story that ran in the Tennessean in January 2008 that takes a little tour through some of the Nashville cemeteries where stars are buried. It's definitely worth looking at if you have any interest in this area.

All the video I shot at Spring Hill and at Old City Cemetery feature both Kevin and myself talking. I'll try to add them in rough order of how we went that day (to the extent that I can remember the order!).

Roy Acuff, Singer and Grand Ole Opry pioneer:



Hank Snow, singer:



Jimmy Martin, bluegrass singer, bandleader, guitar player:



George Morgan: singer:



Keith Whitley, singer:



Pete Drake, pedal steel guitar player who brought the "talk box" to Peter Frampton:



John Hartford, songwriter, singer and banjo player:



Floyd Cramer, songwriter and piano player:



Louise Scruggs, wife of banjo player Earl Scruggs and manager of Flat & Scruggs and the Earl Scruggs Revue:



Harlan Howard, songwriter UPDATE: My friend Kevin found out why Harlan Howard is buried along with the Civil War heroes and Tennessee and Nashville founders in the Old City Cemetery -- "A lifetime student of the Civil War, it was a dream of Harlan’s to be buried close to General Zollecoffer, the first general killed in the Civil War. Thanks to the generosity of the General’s descendents, a tombstone is [has been] being erected in the family plot."