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North America

Raw Travel Nashville

When I visited my hometown of Nashville and Pulaski, Tennessee to shoot for Raw Travel  I had two extra goals in mind.

1) Show the diversity of Nashville, both musically and culturally.

2) Dispel stereotypes about my hometown of Pulaski, Tennessee (just google it if you don’t know what I’m speaking of)

If you’ve seen the episode, then I suppose you can be the judge of whether we succeeded in our aims.

But if you’d like to see some of the musical diversity featured on the show, we’ll share with you a couple of musical artists who were kind enough to perform for us.

First up is Jonah Kraut, a singer/songwriter from Chicago. At first glance, Jonah fits the profile of the prototypical musician transplant so abundant in Nashville these days in that he moved here to be surrounded by music and the creative energy that finds its way to Nashville.

However, there is one notable exception. Jonah’s not looking to be the next George Straight or Kings of Leon or whatever. He’s a classically trained musician who was inspired by Nashville’s country, bluegrass and blues roots. Listening to Jonah’s music one could forget they are listening to a contemporary artist. The listener is taken back in time to the good old days of roots country and blues.. even mixing in some rockabilly from time to time.

I was inspired by Jonah’s music and his story and he’s truly a good guy. I loved hanging out with him and the irony of a Chicago transplant showing me around my own hometown was not lost on me. Though in my defense, I have been gone for quiet some time and while I lived in Nashville for many years, Pulaski is my true hometown and where I spend most of my time when back in Tennessee.

I hope you’ll give Jonah’s music a listen. You can find out more about Jonah at his website www.JonahKraut.com  and here is Jonah performing for our cameras his blues inspired song “Company Man”.

On the other end of the musical spectrum are the guys from the psychobilly band “Hellfire Revival”. Psychobilly is a niche form of music combining elements of punk and rockabilly and more likely to be celebrated in places like the West Coast of the U.S. or internationally in hotspots like Germany and other parts of Europe, but I’ve found small scenes almost everywhere I’ve visited and Nashville is no exception.

These guys all have day jobs and while they are from all over, they moved to Music City not to pursue any big musical dream but to simply enjoy what Nashville has to offer to young, creative types, a cool lifestyle within a somewhat affordable cost of living.

They performed for our cameras in the heart of East Nashville. East Nashville is hot right now and not unlike Brooklyn is to Manhattan, is the place where artists and creatives are making their home these days because of less expensive rent and the plethora of cool spots to hang out. If I were to move back to Nashville, I’m pretty sure East Nashville would be my spot.

Here are the guys from Hellfire Revival having a good time and doing their thing, which as you’ll see, is neither Country OR Western.