Camping at Lock A, Cheatham Dam, This Past Week

 

I have a little photo album of my camping trip to Cheatham Dam Lock A Campground last Monday through Thursday. Well, to clarify...

I had reserved Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights at my bestest favorite campsite up at "Cheatham Lake," really just a wide spot in the mighty Cumberland River. From  HISTORIC CHEATHAM COUNTY TOUR SITES:

               ASSEMBLED AND WRITTEN BY
                     J. M. ALLEN
                        Corresponding Secretary CCHGA
                     FOR THE CHEATHAM COUNTY HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL ASSOCIATION

LOCK "A" & FOX'S BLUFF

CCHGA 3

    Located at the end of Cheatham Dam Road off Highway 12 North in Cheatham County. The Lock was completed and placed in operation November 26, 1904 at a cost of $490, 010 .77. It was 52 feet wide and 280 feet long. lt was erected to control the waters of Harpeth Shoals, a fivemile stretch of the Cumberland River between Ashland City and Clarksvillle which interrupted more steamboat business than all other natural impediments along the navigable course of the river.

    On November 19, 1906 Captain W. T. Hunter became the first Captain on the Cumberland todeliberately "Jump" a Dam with a Steamboat. He accomplished this feat at Lock "A" on the "H. W. Buttorff", while the water was at high level.

    The peak of the cliff overlooking Lock "A" is Fox's Bluff with one of the most scenic and picturesque views of the Cumberland Valley anywhere in the area. It used to be one of the local points of interest for visitors to the area but is now inaccessible due to the area being part of the Camp Grounds at the Cheatham Dam Recreation Area ..

NOTE: SEE: "Steamboating on the Cumberland" by Byrd Douglas

The whole story of the building of the site and the Army Corps of Engineers campsite there is an engaging one, and I recommend more research, and a visit if you are anywhere in striking distance. One of my favorite features is the grove of pecan trees that lines the river, lacing through the campsites and yielding delicious nuts every year, that is if you can time your harvest to beat the squirrels to them.

Anyway, long story short, I got to the campsite in a light drizzle and set up my tent and other gear, spent one rainy night and awoke into a chilly but lovely day riverside. I wanted to hike on Tuesday but the Cumberland River Memorial trail is closed, small bridges and who knows what else having been eradicated by recent heavy rains. So I spent Tuesday chilling in my chair and hammock, for which I had just purchased  a nice, heavy but portable stand, and fishing. Reading and playing mandolin. It was a very lovely relaxing day. Toward the end of the day I checked my Ventusky weather app and was convinced that it was going to start raining at dark and essentially not stop, with at times downpours, for the next three days. I made the difficult decision to pack it up. 

I did that, then I added all my remaining local firewood to the campfire and sat in my camp chair playing mandolin and enjoying the fall light on the Cumberland until the drizzle started to increase in intensity, threw my chair into the car, and headed home. I'm glad I did, since Ventusky had done me a solid. I enjoyed the next couple days as my usual ones, relaxing and painting in our lovely home in The Nations neighborhood of my birth city. 

Here's the few pics I took. One of them yielded a painting subject, and a piece to paraphrase Philip Levine, a long ago mentor at his teaching residency at Vanderbilt, to celebrate the exquisite in the mundane. That will be at my scottmerrick.me site when it is finished, but the photo is in the album. Look for the stone on the ground with a mossy bowl inhabited by a tiny, perfect, plant. Here, click the photo for the album, silly:

My Americana Fest 2025!

It was a blast. I took a few minutes this morning to slap together a single image summary of my travels in my home town this year:

I cannot recommend this experience any higher. This is, I think, my fourth year of spending nearly a week (5 days and nights) exploring known and unknown venues in my hometown of Nashville, TN, and what do you know? I was better at maintaining notes on where I went and who I saw. 

A few of the names of solo performers and groups are those I saw only a song or two because of scheduling, or perhaps I was not taken enough by their presence to hang around when there were so many other talents abounding about, but I think I did a pretty good week of turning my C note and a quarter into a big bucket of memories and experiencing live new music to add to my Spotify. 

Yeah, I'm still on Spotify. Why? I actually LOVE the algorithm that brings me new music attuned to my listening habits. Which are considerable. I love that my own work with The Last Frontier Band is there (ancient history, but fun), as well as my solo instrumental offering from a decade or more ago. I also like the playlist feature with its access to pretty much anything:  One thing I like to do is create lists containing every cover of a song I can find. There's a folder of these at my account, free to check out at will.

Just google any of the names or venues above to learn more, which, friends and neighbors, I did in abundance this past week. It's now Sunday, the day after, and I'm a happy puppy, listening to one of my new found faves, the Aussie artist Falls.

This won't be long, but quick takeaways:

In the new to me category, from Tuesday to Saturday, I was completely taken by:

• Sister Sadie
• Fancy Hagood
• The Carlile Family Band
• Lisa LeBlanc
• Macon Music Review
• Jackson and the Janks
• Cat Clyde
• John Cragie
• Bek Brooks
• Vanessa Jade
• Jordy Lane
• Falls

In my already-known and can't get enough online or off category, 

• Amanda Shires
• Brandi Carlile
• Kathy Matea
• Suzy Boggus
• Sista Strings
• JesseWelles

And, almost without exception, everyone I heard and saw. I walked, in totale, maybe 4 miles those 5 days, not of course to mention my daily strolls with Lemon, my canine girlfriend. Here's a pic of her:

Lemon dawg

I had very few regrets. I'm glad I added everything I would have liked to see into my "My Schedule" portion of the AmericanaFest app, so I could pick and choose on the fly. In a festival like this, spread out all over the city (and beyond), one is at any given time missing more than one is seeing, but that's just an embarassment of riches. I'm happy to have had so many great conversations with so many good people in so many venues, some of them new to me. I smile to myself, and will for a good while, when I think back on the musical highs I experienced all week. 

I regret missing Amanda Shires (again :) at Musicians' Corner in Centennial Park, which I left early to get to Basement East for Craig Finn. He was good, but Amanda is, well, Amanda; and she slayed at Exit/In on Thursday night. I'm on pins and needles for her new album drop the 26th of this month. I regret leaving The 5Spot Aussie BBQ to hit one of my favorite places, Joelton Hardware, for their two stage venue, their first venture into AF. There weren't many attendees there and though the performers I saw there were good, there is no one on my "newly found" list above from that venture, and everyone I saw at The 5Spot made that list.

I told ya it wouldn't be long. Did you have your own AF2025 experience? Comment here if'n you did. 

But before I sign off, I want to mention you can watch some of the best of the best shows archived at the NPR Music Channel on YouTube. I did not make the Americana Day Stage from WMOT at all, partly because I watched a couple performances at YouTube and loved the groups but didn't think I wanted to sit in what looks like a church auditorium (why? it was formerly a church auditorium) in a folding chair all day, row by row filled by fans. I'll watch each and every one online.

I loved the awards show, even though it came across like the stage manager called in sick, with all the dead moments in transitions, and John C. Reilly died multiple deaths onstage as host. I think he's a good actor, but his hosting skills can only improve if he watches the thing, though I don't otherwise know why he'd want to live through it again. I had seen Jesse Wells the night before and he always seems to get a tear or three from me. The awards show, and his eloquent and simple acceptance speech for winning the new "Free Speech in Music" award from the Americana Music Association was no exception. He closed with the stirring comment, "Life's too short not to always say exactly what you think, all the time." You go, Jesse. You go.

Thank you to the Americana Music Association and to the whole AmericanaFest staff and volunteers for making my week, hell, making my year, at least in music!