Our full day in Nashville started with a visit to Lipscomb University's Dolly Parton dress exhibit. The exhibit was organized by Dolly's niece (who is her archivist), and the Lipscomb University Fashion and Design department. The exhibit was very interesting and had a nice video explaining all the behind-the-scenes work needed for her dresses. Dolly has a staff of at least 6 people to make her apparel. As you can see in the bottom right picture, the detail on the dresses was quite fascinating! (click to enlarge) The staff has to prepare around 300 dresses per year and, fortunately, Dolly does not have a problem with wearing the same dress more than once since each new dress takes around 40 hours of work to prepare. These are just a few of the many dresses on display.
After the Dolly exhibit, we spotted Nashville's replica
Parthenon. It's a full recreation of the one in Athens, only this one has a roof and no scaffolding.
And, of course, no visit to Nashville is complete without buying some Goo-Goo clusters! They remind me of a local Fort Wayne candy that I grew up with.
The main event of this trip was the John Denver Rocky Mountain Christmas show. It was mostly John singing on a video on the big screen, accompanied by the live Nashville Symphony and the musicians. Mack Bailey (right) sang Oh Holy Night and Chris Nole (left) was featured on
For You, just like he did in the concerts he did with John; it was as beautiful as ever!
At one point in the concert Mack told how whenever John Denver bought a new guitar, he bought identical 6- and 12-string models. At the time of his death, the 12-string was in final preparation and got lost in the shuffle of his estate. Well, tonight was the first time these two guitars were reunited!
The main performers are shown on the right: Jason Seber (conductor), Chris Nole (piano), Alan Deremo (bass), Nate Barnes (drums), Mack Bailey (guitar and lead vocals), and Jon Conley (guitar).
Tomorrow we start a 2 day drive home so no further posts for this trip are anticipated.
