The Country Music Hall of Fame is three floors of glitz and glamour. Everything shines: gold discs, gibson guitars, cadillacs. All facets of the Country Music tradition are explored, though not much attention unfortunately is paid to alternative country.

What is alt-country? Wilco's Jay Bennet said it's music that "applies a steel-toed boot to the rhinestone-encrusted ass of commercialized country crap." Good call. There are a lot of rhinestones in the Hall of Fame, and sequins too. But! Gram Parsons does make an appearance, as does Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. No Ryan Adams though. Yet. But does he deserve to be there? It's interesting that in the American record stores almost everything is lumped into the 'rock' section, unlike the eccentric and sometimes dubious 'country' section of Real Groovy.

Anyway, the Hall of Fame was indeed inspiring. The real young punks of early Country were the rockabillies: Jimmy Rodgers, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, Janis Martin, early Elvis etc.. The photos and old footage of these performers exhbiit a raw energy unheard in the world of commercial country today, and indeed commercial pop music.

I found myself in a small cinema room and hearing an NZ accent, was utterly ashamed to find it was coming from the screen, starring Keiith Urban. What an embarrassment.

There were amazing artefacts on display: Nudie suits made for Hank Williams, Johnny Cash's guitar, Gram Parsons costumes, and walls of gold discs. I was happy to see a video clip of Gillian Welch & David Rawlings in an area dedicated to the neo-traditional scene. Unfortunately close by was a video clip of Shania Twain. My experience of the Country Music Hall of Fame, as I expected, was with mixed feelings.

It took the good part of Wednesday for us to get through the Hall, after which we left downtown to find a recommended record store up near the university. At 'Great Escape Records' I bought Hank Williams, as one should in Nashville.

I had been eating well. Near the hostel was the Baptist Hospital, with a cafeteria open to the public. Healthy, cheap food for all! I was a little nervous being surrounded by medical staff, so acted as hospitalised as I could, just to fit in.