Miller spent decades as a studio player and songwriter before beginning to be recognized on his own artistic merits, in the late 1990s. Now he’s a revered figure among the undergrounders who began establishing their own home and garage studios and making their own albums more than a decade ago, when computer-based recording got cheap and good and they found that the established country-music industry had little interest in their work. Today Nashville and the surrounding area have dozens of nook-and-cranny performance spaces that cater to non-mainstream performers. Jazz, punk, and metal have a better toehold in the home of the so-called hat acts than they did a decade past, though as Miller points out, Nashville still lacks a genuine jazz club.
The transformation in the artistic character of Music City USA is most apparent in East Nashville, an area just north of downtown proper that’s become a magnet for all kinds of musicians and visual artists. That’s where Jack White of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs produced Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose in a home studio, and where he moved to from Detroit last year. Bob Dylan’s music director, veteran Boston musician Stu Kimball, also relocated to East Nashville in 2006 — part of an exodus of local players to Nashville that includes Angelo Petraglia (co-writer/producer for Kings of Leon and Kim Richey), Hambridge (a busy producer and writer who led the team for Susan Tedeschi’s Grammy-nominated Tone Cool album Just Won’t Burn), Jamie Rubin (who played in Boston’s the Rain and Modern Farmer), Reeves Gabrels (former David Bowie guitarist), and six-stringer Rich Gilbert (Human Sexual Response, the Zulus, Tanya Donelly, Frank Black). Black himself has recorded his last two albums there.
The Family Wash, a small but airy East Nashville restaurant, gallery, and music room run by singer/guitarist Rubin and chef Julia Helton, has become a gathering point for the creative community. On any night you might find the Black Crowes’ Audley Freed or Gabrels at the bar or on the stage, which has hosted everybody from local jazz bands and obscure songwriters to touring Bostonians Peter Wolf and Twinemen. And each month a different artist’s work adorns the walls.
“It takes a good five years to establish yourself as an artist in this town, though for Reeves and Rich it was a lot quicker,” Rubin says. “But people who’ve been here a long time tell me it used to take 10 or 15, unless you were brought into the studio scene or signed to a major label. When I got here nine years ago, it was elitist. In the big studios, it’s still that way. Pretty much the same guys play on the majority of the mainstream records, which is why they sound so homogenous. But for street-level audiences and musicians doing their own thing, it’s gotten more open.
“When Julia and I started this place, we felt there was a need for a community center for musicians. Now it’s also a hangout for writers, photographers, and painters, where people can just relax or share ideas or inspire each other.”
Hustling, however, is still a requirement for success. On a typical day, Tom Hambridge might have a morning recording session, a writing session with another songsmith, perhaps a second co-writing slot later in the day, and then a night gig or session.
