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Tennessee: Heart of Blues & Country Music

Tennessee is known as the capital of blues and country music. Nashville is considered the homeland of country music, while Memphis is where rock and roll originated from the combination of blues and country styles. Elvis Presley began his career in Memphis and popularized these Tennessee musical genres nationally and internationally. In addition to its rich musical heritage, Tennessee is also known for its humid subtropical climate and popular tourist destinations like Graceland, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Civil War battle sites.

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64 views1 page

Tennessee: Heart of Blues & Country Music

Tennessee is known as the capital of blues and country music. Nashville is considered the homeland of country music, while Memphis is where rock and roll originated from the combination of blues and country styles. Elvis Presley began his career in Memphis and popularized these Tennessee musical genres nationally and internationally. In addition to its rich musical heritage, Tennessee is also known for its humid subtropical climate and popular tourist destinations like Graceland, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Civil War battle sites.

Uploaded by

linda
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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A guide to Tennessee - the capital of blues and country music

Are you feeling like singing the blues? If yes, look no further. Tennessee, whose name comes from an old settlement belonging to the Cherokee Amerindians, is located in the central-east side of the United States. It lies from the Mississippi plain in the West, to the Appalachian Mountains in the East, plunging like a feather between the neighbour states Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Nashville is the homeland of country music. On the other side, in Memphis, a city situated a little more in the West on the Mississippis lake shore, some guy named W.C. Handy, recorded in 1912 a song symbolically called Memphis Blues. During the following decays, rock and roll was born, resulting from the union between blues and country music, genre which brought Elvis Presley worldwide fame. The adored king of this musical genre began his brilliant career right in Memphis. Elvis Presley used and combined with ingenuity elements of very popular genres in Tennessee: gospel and evangelical musical on one side, country and western on the other. The second current became oddly loved in the United States. As a proof regarding this fact we can mention the radio phonic programme Grand Ole Opry, broadcasted by a radio station from Nashville, uninterrupted since 1925 and dedicated, among others, to country and western music. The cultural role of Tennessee is not just about music. The Vanderbilt University is a well known centre in the United States for propagating the literature which embraces old conservative traditions, whose values are also represented by the group of poets known as the Fugitive Poets. As far as climate is concerned, most of the state has a humid subtropical climate, with the exception of some of the higher elevations in the Appalachians, which are classified as having a mountain temperate climate or a humid continental climate due to cooler temperatures. The Gulf of Mexico plays an important role in the climate of Tennessee, with winds from the south being responsible for most of the state's annual precipitation. Generally, the state has hot summers and mild to cool winters with generous precipitation throughout the year. Besides Nashville and Memphis (Graceland, Elvis Presleys residence), you should also consider visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (the most often visited natural reservation in the South of the United States), Montgomery Bell State Park near Nashville, the Chickamauga Lake as well as the Lookout Missionary Ridge Peak (commemorative place since the War of Secession). It is possible for the melancholic views from Tennessee to have given birth to blues, one of the most appreciated genres of light music.

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