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A Visit to Nashville "Music City" Tennessee - September 2017

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Please Join Jeanne, Anita & Bruce on their visit to Nashville's Grand Ole Opry; the Ryman auditorium; Tootise's Orchid Lounge; Carey Bringle's renowned Peg Leg Porker BBQ restaurant; and Nashville's infamous Music Row.

The song Tootsies Wall of Fame accompanying my photos of Tootsies Orchid Lounge was performed by Hattie Louis Tatum Bess...better known as Tootsie.

Tootsie bought the bar known as "Moms" in 1960 and credits the painter she hired for painting the building orchid and renaming the honky tonk "Tootsies Orchid Lounge".

Tootise, who is still revered by singer songwriters like Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson was known to slip a five or ten dollar bill into the pockets of luckless writers and pickers.It is written that Willie got his first songwriting job after singing at Tootsies.

In addition to Kris and Willie, Tootsie hosted Faron Young, Tom T. Hall Hank Cochran, Mel Tillis, Roger Miller, Webb Pierce, Waylon Jennings, Patsy Cline,Charlie Pride and many others.

As Tootsie mentions in her song, Charlie Pride gave her a jeweled hat pin that she used to stick unruly with or to chase-out stragglers at closing time.

Tootsie kept a cigar box behind the bar in which she kept full of the IOUs signed by struggling song writers and pickers for food and drinks and, rumor has it, each year successful Grand Ole Opry members would payoff those IOUs to allow Tootsie to keep the tradition going..

Tootise's funeral on February 8, 1978 was attended by Tom T. Hall, Roy Acuff and Faron Young, and Connie Smith sang Tootsie's favorite hymns as she rested in her orchid-colored casket wearing an orchid gown and holding a fresh orchid.
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Kris Kristofferson
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