MuzikMafia: From the Local Nashville Scene to the National Mainstream

Chapter Four: April through December 2004: The MuzikMafia Takes the National Stage

aPriL throUgh DeceMBer 2004 the MuzikMafia takes the national stage Country Music Television (CMT) declared on December 18 during its show 20 Biggest Hits of 2004 that the MuzikMafia was the Number One hit of the year. The rapid growth in popularity of the MuzikMafia was the result of its two breakout acts, Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson, who celebrated combined record sales of approximately five million units from May through December 2004. Big & Rich and Gretchen toured throughout the summer, respectively, with some of commercial country’s best known acts. By year’s end Big & Rich and Gretchen were co-headlining their own national tour sponsored by Chevrolet. By March 2004 the MuzikMafia’s fanbase had grown considerably as a result of the community’s ties to Kid Chapter Four THE MUzIKMAFIA TAKES THE NATIoNAL STAGE 76 Rock and Music Row. Eager to capitalize on their growing fame, the godfathers looked around Nashville for a venue that was large enough to accommodate audiences in excess of five hundred people but small enough to re-create the intimacy of the Pub of Love, and that had sufficient sound equipment for the MuzikMafia’s audio needs. The community found the Mercy Lounge located at One Cannery Row in the SoBro area of downtown Nashville. HistoricCanneryRow(seefig.4.2)indowntownNashvilleissurrounded by dimly lit streets, aging buildings in need of repair, and a few locally owned businesses. The building itself was erected as a flour mill in 1863. Cannery Row earned its name when the Dale Food Company bought the property in 1957 and began processing food, eventually opening a restaurant called the Figure 4.1 Map of MuzikMafia locales in Nashville. A = Pub of Love; B = Demonbreun Street Roundabout; C = Mercy Lounge/Cannery Row Ballroom; D = Bluesboro. 77 THE MUzIKMAFIA TAKES THE NATIoNAL STAGE Figure 4.2 Cannery Row, downtown Nashville, July 2005. Figure 4.3 The Mercy Lounge at Cannery Row, July 2005. THE MUzIKMAFIA TAKES THE NATIoNAL STAGE 78 Cannery in the early 1970s. During the 1970s the building housed a country music theater that eventually included other genres of music in the 1980s. As of 2009, Cannery Row housed the Mercy Lounge (see fig. 4.3), where the MuzikMafia regularly performed for approximately four months in 2004, in addition to the larger Cannery Row Ballroom. By 2004 the Mercy Lounge had not been considered a country bar for almost two decades. In fact, it is more than five blocks removed from Nashville ’s country music scene in the District. The Mercy Lounge’s musical history includes performances by numerous well-known acts such as R.E.M., Iggy Pop, Jimmy Cliff, Midnight Oil, Bret Michaels, George Clinton, Robert Cray, Yo La Tengo, and Lenny Kravitz. The MuzikMafia’s Tuesday performances at the Mercy Lounge began the evening of April 6, 2004. That afternoon Cory contacted the co-owner of the Mercy Lounge, Chark Kinsolving, who immediately invited the MuzikMafia to play. Tuesday was the least patronized day of the week for the Mercy Lounge. Kinsolving’s business partner Todd Ohlhauser, who was unfamiliar with the MuzikMafia, admitted to me that he was surprised by how many people came, the size of the crowd, and how late the audience stayed, especially on a weeknight. The Mercy Lounge was an optimal location for the MuzikMafia for several reasons. First and foremost, the bar was separate from the commercial country scene along lower Broadway. It is also distant from the Demonbreun Street Roundabout area, resulting in fewer college students and industry personnel at shows. The sound system was adequate for the MuzikMafia’s needs. According to Todd Ohlhauser, the Mercy Lounge’s owners had been renting a “fine but somewhat outdated” professional sound system from the Exit/In, a well-known club in the Rock Block area of Nashville near Vanderbilt University , but in midsummer purchased a new, professional-grade system that included an Allen & Heath ML3000 console and a 2 Drive Rack 260 processor . And the venue had its own sound engineer who did not have to be paid separately by the MuzikMafia. Ohlhauser and Kinsolving offered the MuzikMafia payment comparable to what they had received at the Tin Roof and Dan McGuinness Pub. Also, the Mercy Lounge could accommodate over 550 people and, should the MuzikMafia decide to expand, in the same building was the much larger Cannery Row Ballroom with a maximum capacity of 1,100 people. 79 THE MUzIKMAFIA TAKES...