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Nashville, Tennessee Music and Nashville go way back. Davy Crockett first came to Nashville to fiddle and chose politics for a day job. From its very beginning, Nashville was a magnet for musicians and the commerce that followed to listen. The earliest settlers celebrated in the late 1700s with fiddle tunes and buck dancing after disembarking on the shores of the Cumberland River. And little surprise that makeshift saloons soon followed, drawn by the music. Music was always the common thread connecting the life and livelihood of the city and its people. And visitors have always ventured to Nashville to experience the music that weaves such a fundamental pattern in the city's cultural, business and social fabric. As the 1800s unfolded, Nashville also grew to become a national center for music publishing and took music around the world. The Fisk Jubilee Singers from Nashville's Fisk University took the first around-the-world tour by a musical act. Their efforts helped fund the school's mission of educating freed slaves after the Civil War, and their reputation put Nashville on the map as a global music center – long before the days of Sony and BMI. In 1896 the R. H. Boyd Publishing Corporation became one of the nation's first black-owned music publishing houses. Their efforts help propel the first African-American religious songs to the rest of the nation, and fertilized the Nashville sound in gospel music.  Nashville's first settlers played their music on the banks of the Cumberland River. Today, the difference is measured only in dollars and decibels. In 1897, a group of Confederate veterans chose Nashville as the site of a massive reunion. The event was held at the former tabernacle that would later become known as the Ryman Auditorium. So many former Confederate soldiers poured into town that a new balcony was built inside to accommodate their great numbers. Dubbed "The Confederate Gallery" – a designation still visible today – the hall's capacity nearly doubled and provided a perfect venue for a new home for musical and theatrical events. Perhaps no other structure in Nashville is revered on such a national level as the Ryman Auditorium, not simply because of its charm and acoustics, but because of its resiliency and commitment to the music business. The building almost met the demolition ball as early as 1905 – had it not been for the determination and devotion to music of one woman, Lula C. Naff, who took over the management of the place and changed it into an entertainment hall. She charge a dime a ticket and created a well that made millions of dollars and launched hundreds of careers in the ensuing decades. Naff brought in opera singers, symphony orchestras and such notables as W.C. Fields, Mae West, Tallulah Bankhead, Basil Rathbone, and Orson Welles. Enrico Caruso, John Phillip Sousa and the Vienna Orchestra gave roof-raising performances that earned the Ryman the nickname "the Carnegie Hall of the South." And at times, according to some reports, Naff mortgaged her own home to underwrite the production costs. To shield any prejudice against her gender, she ran the hall under the name of L.C. Naff.
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