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| Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital and the second most populous city of the U.S. state of Tennessee after Memphis. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. Nashville is a major hub for the health care, music, publishing, and transportation industries. Nashville has a consolidated city-county government which includes seven smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. The population of Nashville-Davidson County stood at 607,413 as of 2005, according to United States Census Bureau estimates. The 2005 population of the entire 13-county Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area was 1,498,836, making it the largest and fastest-growing metropolitan area in the state. Country music Many popular tourist sites involve country music, including the Country Music Hall of Fame, Ryman Auditorium and Belcourt Theater, which was for many years the site of the Grand Ole Opry. Each year, the CMA Music Festival (formerly known as Fan Fair) brings many thousands of country fans to the city. Nashville was once home to the Opryland USA theme park, which operated from 1972 to 1997 before being demolished to make room for the Opry Mills mega-shopping mall. Lower Broadway is home to many honky tonk bars and clubs. Probably the most famous of these is Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, which has hosted many big names from the country music scene while remaining small, intimate, and relatively unchanged since its founding in the 1960s. Christian pop music The Christian pop and rock music industry is based in Nashville, with many of the genre's most popular acts such as Rebecca St. James, Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Newsboys based there. Two members of the band Relient K, Matt Hoopes and Jon Schneck also live in Nashville. One of the most popular Christian bands today, Third Day, regularly records in Nashville, although they are based in Atlanta. |
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| Jazz Although Nashville was never known as a jazz town, it did have many great jazz bands including The Nashville Jazz Machine led by Dave Converse and its current version, the Nashville Jazz Orchestra led by Jim Williamson as well as The Establishment led by Billy Adair. The Francis Craig Orchestra entertained Nashvillians from 1929 to 1945 from the Oak Bar and Grille Room in the Hermitage Hotel. Craig's orchestra was also the first to broadcast over local radio station WSM and enjoyed phenomenal success with a 12-year show that was aired over the entire NBC network. In the late 1930s, he introduced a newcomer, Dinah Shore, a former cheerleader and local graduate of Hume Fogg High School and Vanderbilt University. |
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