Greenbrier, Tennessee

Everything Greenbrier is known for

1 song mention this city 0 artists from here

Music in Greenbrier

Songs About Greenbrier

ride to robert's
jason isbell
10%

Artists From Greenbrier

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Greenbrier

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Greenbrier.

Interstate 65 23 songs Cumberland River 16 songs Highway I 40 20 songs

Musical Heritage

Ryman Auditorium — Mother Church of Country RoadyGoat

1892

The Ryman Auditorium, a Gothic Revival brick hall in downtown Nashville (116 Rep. John Lewis Way North, formerly 5th Avenue North), opened in 1892 as the Union Gospel Tabernacle. Riverboat captain Tom Ryman bankrolled it after a religious conversion at a tent revival, intending a space for preaching; it was renamed for him after his death. Its church-pew seating and famous acoustics earned it the nickname 'the Mother Church of Country Music.' The Grand Ole Opry broadcast from this stage from 1943 to 1974 before moving to its purpose-built house; the Ryman fell quiet, was nearly demolished, then restored and reopened in 1994. It's a National Historic Landmark and hosts live shows year-round, the Opry returning each winter.

18.0 mi away

History of Greenbrier

Old Hickory: It's Not About the Wood RoadyGoat

1918

Roll into Old Hickory and you'd swear the name is about timber or some old industrial trade. And the industry is real: in nineteen eighteen, DuPont threw up the biggest smokeless-gunpowder plant in the world right here on Hadley's Bend to feed the guns of World War One. Tens of thousands of workers, half a million pounds of powder a day. But the name has nothing to do with hickory wood or the plant. DuPont named the town for Andrew Jackson, the seventh president, whose tough battlefield reputation earned him the nickname 'Old Hickory.' His Hermitage estate sits just up the road. The powder boomtown is named after a man, not a material.

14.3 mi away

The Duel: Andrew Jackson Takes a Bullet to Buy His Aim, 1806 RoadyGoat

1806

The marker on the Adairville square points two miles west, to the Red River bottoms on the old Jeff Burr farm, where on May 30, 1806, Andrew Jackson shot and killed Charles Dickinson. Both men were Tennesseans; they crossed the state line not because dueling was legal in Kentucky (it was illegal here too) but to put themselves out of reach of Tennessee's authorities. The quarrel began over a forfeited horse-race wager between Jackson's stallion Truxton and Ploughboy, owned by Dickinson's father-in-law, and curdled in the newspapers until Dickinson printed that Jackson was "a worthless scoundrel, a poltroon, and a coward." (Dickinson had also, while drunk, insulted Jackson's wife Rachel, and apologized; Jackson had let that go.) Dickinson was the finest pistol shot in Tennessee, so Jackson and his second, Thomas Overton, made a cold decision: let Dickinson fire first, absorb it, then aim at leisure. Dickinson fired. Dust puffed from Jackson's coat. Jackson did not fall; he put a hand to his chest and stood. Dickinson recoiled from his mark, crying "Great God! Have I missed him?", and Overton forced him back to stand and take his return fire. Jackson pulled the trigger and the pistol stopped at half-cock. He drew the hammer back, aimed again, and fired; Dickinson bled to death by dusk. Jackson's biographer James Parton wrote that Dickinson's "aim had been perfect. He had sent the ball precisely where he supposed Jackson's heart was beating. But the thinness of his body and the looseness of his coat combining to deceive Dickinson, the ball had only broken a rib or two." Whether Jackson had the RIGHT to re-cock was argued bitterly and never settled: a "snap" normally counted as your shot, but Jackson's hammer never fell at all. His seconds certified the duel fair; Dickinson's father-in-law published that Jackson had taken an "unguarded, illiberal and unjust advantage." Jackson walked off concealing the wound so Dickinson would die believing he had missed, and only later did his surgeon notice a shoe full of blood. The ball lodged too near his heart to cut out, and he carried it for the remaining thirty-nine years of his life. (Sources: Kentucky Historical Marker #100; Library of Congress; Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, 1859.)

RoadyGoat → · 17.3 mi away

Old Hickory's Cussing Parrot Crashed His Funeral RoadyGoat

1845

Andrew Jackson died at the Hermitage, his home outside Nashville, Tennessee, on June eighth, eighteen forty-five. Two days later, on June tenth, his funeral was held at the house, with mourners crowded onto the porch and out across the lawn. And by the most famous account of that day, the solemn service was nearly stolen by a parrot. Jackson had bought a grey parrot named Poll for his wife Rachel back in eighteen twenty-seven, paying twenty-five dollars for it. After Rachel died, the old president doted on the bird for the rest of his life, and somewhere along the way Poll had picked up language that did not belong at a funeral. As the crowd gathered, the parrot got worked up and let loose what one witness called perfect gusts of cuss words, swearing so loud and so long that the bird had to be carried out of the house. The tale comes from William Norment, who was a teenager at the funeral and did not set it down on paper until he was in his nineties, so historians treat it as a beloved but unverified legend. True or not, it is a fitting send-off for the most pugnacious president the country ever had.

17.5 mi away

Grand Ole Opry House

1925

The longest-running radio broadcast in American history, airing continuously since 1925, now based at the Opry House in the Opryland complex.

15.9 mi away

Ryman Auditorium

1892

Built in 1892 as a tabernacle for revival meetings, the Ryman served as the home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974 and is considered the mother church of country music.

18.0 mi away

The Hermitage - Andrew Jackson Home

1804

The plantation home of Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, who lived here from 1804 until his death in 1845.

17.5 mi away

Lower Broadway Honky-Tonk Row

1940

The strip of honky-tonk bars on Lower Broadway in Nashville, anchored by Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and Robert's Western World, has been the heart of live country music since the 1940s.

18.2 mi away

The Parthenon

1897

A full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, built for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition and now a permanent landmark in Centennial Park.

18.8 mi away

Things to Do in Greenbrier

historical 15.8 mi away
Grand Ole Opry

Country music's most famous stage since 1925. Every legend has played here.
food 17.2 mi away
Prince's Hot Chicken

The original Nashville hot chicken since 1945. The recipe was revenge. Now it's a religion.
historical 18.0 mi away
Ryman Auditorium

The Mother Church of Country Music. Original home of the Grand Ole Opry.
food 18.5 mi away
Hattie B's Hot Chicken

Nashville's modern hot chicken sensation. The line wraps the block. 'Shut the Cluck Up' level will rearrange your afternoon.
historical 17.9 mi away
Willie Nelson Museum

Willie's braids his guitar Trigger memorabilia and more in Nashville.
historical 18.3 mi away
Hatch Show Print

One of America's oldest letterpress shops still printing concert posters by hand since 1879.

Everything Near Greenbrier

55 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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