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They’d been waiting through Covid to finally have their tomato catch-up in Nashville last year.

You see it takes a lot to ground the Tennesseans, particularly on August 12 and 13 when it’s all about tomatoes.

And so if you like Warhol Campbell’s soup tins, or let’s hope a food fight, then The Tomato Art Fest is for you.

And this is not just any old Tomato Fest.

They only hold the record for the highest number of tomato-dressed costumes.

You could say they crushed it.

Tammaty Wynette

And that you’d expect to hear Tammaty Wynette blaring out.

And maybe some tunes from adopted Tennessean Sheryl Crow, or Cherry Crowmato as she’s known on Toms weekend.

You can see Sheryl too first weekend of September for Americanafest.

That’s Labor Weekend which starts, of course, on a Friday.

She’s come a long way since hanging with Bill-Buddy and watching the sun come up over Santa Monica Boulevard.

And Cherry Crowmato

Now she has her own ranch in Tennessee, complete with its own chapel, and has reinvented herself as a Country Gal.

Sheryl is the headline act for the Live on the Green free music festival.

And Coin, Moon Taxi, Yola (we’re listening) and more.

In truth, the music never stops in Nashville with the city boasting more music museums than anywhere else in the world.

You see it’s not only Country, though we wouldn’t mind if it was.

Music City

Most recently, the National Museum of African American Music opened its doors last year.

It claims to integrate history and interactive technology to tell the story of more than 50 genres and sub-genres inspired by African-American musicians.

Nearby is the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, while you can even get a studio tour at Historic RCA Studio B.

The storied Ryman Auditorium doubles during the day as a museum preserving the legacy of the iconic Mother Church and all the music performed there.

The Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum‘s exhibits take visitors on a tour of cities that greatly influenced music culture, featuring an interactive Grammy Museum Gallery.

The legends

Of course, Nashville never forgets its legends and you can see them all at The Johnny Cash Museum and the Patsy Cline Museum as well as the Glen Campbell Museum.

Where naturally, in a nod to my old stomping ground in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, we’d sing Like a Greystones Cowboy.

While when you’re in The Gallery of Iconic Guitars at Belmont you’d naturally want to check out rare string instruments, and play some.

We have, down the road at Sun Studio in Memphis where we channelled our inner Elvis.

Nashville is a treat that awaits me, the good people of the city having wined, dined, entertained me in Dublin.

Before inviting me to a Nashville weekend in The Fair City’s O2 Arena.

And then a ticket to Music City which alas I was unable to take up… just reminding y’all.

And if I have to take a red fruit for my troubles, well I would.

So, here’s looking forward to a tomato catch-up in Nashville.

We are on UN’s red code to Save the World and 30 years of saltwater welling in my eyes since I first heard Julian Lennon’s song, Rainy Days and Songdays now hails those singers who’ve been addressing the crisis for years.

When will there be?

Harvest for the World (Isley Brothers): Gather every man, gather every woman, Celebrate your life, give thanks for your children, gather everyone, gather altogether, overlookin’ none, hopin’ life gets better for the world.

The sonorous tones of Cincinnati, Ohio’s finest, carry on them a wonderfully stripped-back message we can all take on board.

My own focus on Cincinnati has been honed since sending one of my writers there back in the day.

I’d plan out the travel pieces they came back with early in the week for the weekend publication and was relaxing in the Dylan Hotel, Amsterdam (as you do) having mapped out the early draft.

When said writer texted me in a panic saying I’d misspelt Cincinnati and that this was jeopardising his contacts with them.

Despite it, of course, being an early draft and me being back in the office two days later. Hey ho, between us we gave the Cincinnatians what they wanted a justifiable celebration of their city.

Don’t it always seem to go?

Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell): And the Canadian chanteuse always caught the zeitgeist with her uniquely on-point lyrics.

‘They took all the trees and put ’em in a tree museum and charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em’ refers to the Foster Botanical Garden in downtown Honolulu.

Encroaching tourism is as big, if not bigger, threat than when Joni and the other hippies were trailing a blaze. Go and see it before they ruin it.

Welling in my eye

Saltwater (Julian Lennon): It’s 30 years since John’s boy released this song, a classic in its own right.

And when I hear about the hole in the sky saltwater wells in my eyes.

And alas it’s getting bigger Julian.

The right Cash

Don’t Go Near The Water (Johnny Cash): The King of Country was a lifelong advocate for ecology and the American landscape.

And you can learn more about his passion for Nature at his museum in Nashville.

Johnny. of course, was a man of the land, Arkansas in his case, and he would turn in his grave…

Bob’s the job

The Sun Is Shining (Bob Marley): Marley, of course, loved the land so much he tried to smoke it all.

But joking aside his Rasta songs were inspired by a union with Nature.

Chicago‘s The Rock and Roll Playhouse knew it and held an Earth Day celebration concert featuring tunes by the great master of reggae two years ago.

To the rescue… here I am.

If only… because 30 years of saltwater welling in my eyes something has to be done.

Tag: https://www.johnnycashmuseum.com/

Tomato catch-up in Nashville