> > > Hello again Howard,
> > > Is Knoxville near Nashville? I just finished watching The 34th Annual Country Music Awards. It was very groovy. Essex is right next door to London but spreads right from London to the coast and I live about an hour out of London on the train in a little village called Dedham which is on the border between Essex and Suffolk. The artist John Constable lived there in case you're interested. Dedham Church is visible in a lot of his pictures. It is not a bad thing that you haven't heard of Take That. My friend sitting next to me here liked them though so I'll write this in a whisper [they were terrible!!!!!!!!] Tea is a great great British tradition. Very comforting on a cold day.
> > > Lizzie
> > > x
> > Knoxville is about 170 miles east of Nashville. Both are on I-40 with a 70 mph speed limit so you can easily get there in three hours. I went to high school in Nashville and still think of it as a great town. I used to see Roy Acuff, Boots Randolph, and Little Jimmy Dickens around town. I had a teacher who taught Dinah Shore, but Dinah was a little older than me, so I never met her. Minnie Pearl was always showing up at civic gatherings. I couldn't name a dozen modern-day country music greats.
> > Howard
>
> What a great name Boots Randolph is. And Minnie Pearl. Fantastic. Genius.
>

Am I to believe that you never heard of those musical pioneers?! I think I just aged a lot.
Actually, Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl(AKA Sarah Cannon)are gone now, but I think Jimmy Dickens and Boots Randolph are still around. Randolph is not your typical country musician. He plays the sax.
How about Willie Nelson? I'll bet his music reaches across all the oceans. You might want to check out Rhetta Grimsley Johnson's column in the Atlanta Journal or Knoxville News-Sentinel. She talked about Willie Nelson today. Both papers are easy to find online.
Howard