- This time on Retro Tennessee Crossroads, Al Voecks takes us to a Farrier school.

Janet Tyson shows us barbecue with a competitive edge in a very famous place, and you will get to meet the man behind this beautiful collection of instruments.

I'm Miranda Cohen.

Welcome to another episode of Retro Tennessee Crossroads.

(light music) (static) Back in the late '80s, Broadway wasn't the crowded tourist attraction that it is today.

And while there may not have been a band playing on every corner, Joe Elmore shows us there was still plenty of music originating from that very street.

(upbeat country music) - [Joe] Like it or not, this is the one street people around the world know as Nashville.

Broadway's residents include downtown landmarks, such as the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, as well as the dwindling group of porn shops and beer joints.

But Lower Broad is also home of Music City's home of vintage music makers, Gruhn's Guitars.

(guitar music playing) It's become one of the top places to buy or sell a classic instrument.

Its owner and founder has become a world renowned expert on just about anything with strings.

- I've often enough said that we're running an adoption agency for guitars, and I feel quite strongly that if somebody isn't going to give it a good home, I'd rather keep the instrument and sell it elsewhere.

If I didn't need money at all, I'd probably keep a lot of them and never sell them.

This really is a hobby that got out of hand.

- [Joe] And gradually, George has become one of the top experts who sets the world prices of vintage instruments.

Each day, the shop receives goods from potential sellers, often working on consignment.

His team of craftsmen then restore them to mint condition, and then he sells 'em often to overseas markets like Japan, where because of a weak dollar, American retailers there wholesale.

Inside the store, he sells to customers who range from down home Sunday pickers to all the big stars of rock and country music.

But according to Nashville's guitar guru, the fastest growing new market is the vicarious stars of the baby boom generation.

- What happens is that after age 25 to 30, a lot of people have dropped out of the scene and they have an expensive wife and an expensive house, expensive children, expensive car, upward mobility in their job, but when they get to middle age, they have leisure time again and some stability and money, and they start going back to music.

And we're finding that the baby boomers, my own generation and a little bit younger, are aggressively going back to their musical roots.

And we're selling things like long neck, five string banjos, 12 string guitars, things that weren't selling five years ago but are now that are reminiscent of the folk boom and also of the '60s rock boom.

- [Joe] How do you measure the dollar value of a piece?

Well, George uses a number of yard sticks.

- First, I'll be concerned about who made it.

What model is it?

What age is it?

What condition is it?

How original is it?

And how rare a model is it?

And somewhere, maybe last, how does it sound?

- [Joe] This 1958 Les Paul model is considered the ultimate electric guitar.

George showed me some other music jewels presently in stock.

- The banjos are both Gibsons.

This one is a model called the Florentine.

It was made in the early 1930s.

This other one is a model called the Bella Voce.

These two models were the top two custom Gibsons at the time.

This one is about 1927.

Again, early '30s for the other.

And these are pieces that today will run in the range of about $8,000.

Now, while that's a lot of money, if you were to order one from Gibson today, the interesting shocker is that a new one would not be less.

Now, this is C.F.

Martin 1934.

It's a style 00045, which at that time, this was the most expensive model guitar in a flat top guitar in Martin's catalog.

- What did it cost then?

- Back then, it was about $200.

And today, it's a piece that's worth more about $12,000.

- 12,000?

I've gotta say, George, I've never heard of a $12,000 guitar.

Could you play just a little bit on it?

- Well, there may be guys around who are better musicians.

I'll consider myself to be more of a plunker than a great musician.

But (strums) ooh, it's not in tune, I'm sorry.

- Okay, you're excused.

(guitar music playing) - [Joe] The George crew and the craftsmanship and history of these beauties are as important as the music.

So he and co-author Walter Carter are putting it all down in a couple of books, one of which is an encyclopedia.

He and Walter both write for Frets Magazine and other publications.

And soon, George will even have his own line of guitars on the market.

So things are pretty good.

But beneath the surface, the vintage instrument business has its own dangers.

For example, there's a dwindling supply of craftsmen who can make a mint out of any old instrument.

- I have four people in repair right now, and we are actively looking for one or two more.

We have certainly enough work to keep six people busy in repair, and that's just repairing our own instruments.

We're not even taking in outside work and haven't for the last two years.

- [Joe] George's store is getting much too small for his multifaceted business.

But you can bet he won't leave his landmark Broadway location for more spacious digs in the suburbs.

- I am thinking about moving, but the idea of moving out to the suburbs is really not that appealing to me.

I wanna be easy to find, easy to get to.

And Broadway is still that sort of magical street.

If a visitor is coming to Nashville, whether he's heard of me or not, he'll find me if he comes to Nashville.

Everybody sees this street, and that's special.

(guitar music playing) - What a great story by the great Joe Elmore.

Now, a lot has changed since way back then, but some things have remained the same.

One of the things that has stayed absolutely the same, if you want a guitar, there is one place to go, and that is to Gruhn Guitars.

No longer on Broadway, but here is the man himself, George Gruhn.

We saw you in the story.

What an incredible story, and you were right on Broadway.

Tell us that you're no longer on Broadway.

Tell us about your journey both musically and professionally in getting here today.

- A lot has changed.

since 1969.

- Indeed.

- Excuse me.

A lot has changed since 1989.

My shop actually started January 2nd, 1970, about 100 feet off of Broadway, 111 Fourth Avenue North.

That was a rental building, measuring 20 by 60 feet, 1200 square feet, 100 feet off of Broadway.

The rent was $125 a month, and later, they raised it to 150.

But then my second building, 410 Broadway, I owned.

And that was a building that had about 6,500 square feet of space on three floors, and I bought it for $57,000.

Times have changed.

So I think it recently sold for something like 18 million, but that's not what I got out of it when I left, 'cause I sold it and I bought it in '76 and sold it in mid '93 and moved into 400 Broadway and was there until the move here.

It was 2012, December 21st that I bought this building.

And then it took seven months to renovate it before we moved in.

So we moved in in June of 2013.

So this is our fourth location.

This whole thing essentially is a hobby that got out of hand.

- Tell us about the operation here today.

In the story, you said you had four people that were craftsmen in the back making repairs, and you were looking for more.

So tell me, how many people do you have working here today, and tell us about the shop here today.

- Well, now we have closer to 25 people, and there's half a dozen upstairs, and we have 18,000 square feet on three floors, and it's a significantly larger operation than it would've been in 1989.

- When you look back on this Tennessee Crossroad story and see how much your business and your life has changed today, what does that mean to you?

That the Gruhn name is still out there, still relevant, and still making such a huge impact in the music world?

- Well, we've been through ups and downs.

For people who think that it's been a smooth, steady rise, and that I've always been brilliant in business, they'd be wrong.

It's been a bumpy rollercoaster ride, and even now, there's plenty of challenges.

But in 1989, nobody was doing email.

Nobody had websites.

A lot of folks in business didn't even have a computer.

But the whole approach is different.

But the instruments themselves that appeal to me the most are in many cases older than I am.

So we have a variety, and we also have, in addition to guitars, my mother always told me, don't put all your money in guitars.

You need to have diversified investments.

So I told her not to worry.

I have mandolins and banjos too.

- How wonderful to see that George Gruhn is still making great music today.

Next time you're on 8 Avenue South, stop by and say hello.

Now, over the years, we've introduced you to our fair share of blacksmiths here on Tennessee Crossroads.

Coming up next, Al Voecks is going to take us way back to one of the very first blacksmiths to appear on the show.

Here's the story of Bucky Hatfield and his Tennessee State Farrier School.

- We are all familiar with various schools in Tennessee.

We have UT and Knoxville, MSU in Memphis, MTSU in Murfreesboro, and then we have TSBFS in Bloomington Springs, Tennessee.

TSBFS.

The Tennessee State Blacksmith and Farrier School.

Now, there aren't as many students as you'll have at UT and Knoxville, but those who attend get as thorough a training as if you were attending UT Medical School.

(bright music) The facilities are reminiscent of an old fashioned one room schoolhouse with a potbelly stove.

The dirt floor fits in with the smoke that belches from the forges during class.

All of this is the brainchild of Bucky Hatfield, who claims a shirt tail relationship with the hat Hatfield-McCoy feud.

Bucky came to Tennessee from Texas in 1985 and started his school three years later because he saw a definite need to train those interested in his chosen profession.

And he certainly is not bashful in going about his business.

- See if he's walking straighter now.

Come on, babe.

Yes, yes.

See, a while ago, he was doing this.

He was toned in real bad like this.

Now, he's walking like this by taking them flares off.

This big baby is through.

- [Al] But is there a demand for all of this?

- Oh, yes, sir, you better believe that.

The Tennessee's ranked forth in the nation as far as horse wise.

When I first started the school, I turned away over 200 and almost close to 300 people.

And I've backed down to about 100 now.

The people who will let my students work on their horses, and they appreciate that very much.

- [Al] Are there jobs out there for them?

- Oh, yes, there is.

Most definitely.

- [Al] Bucky's school runs anywhere from three weeks to eight weeks, depending on how much training you want.

Some of that training begins with the basics, at the forges.

- A lot of fellas that come into school, they learn right off the bat.

They see that their hands, they get a little blister.

They don't think they're gonna make it.

But I say, well, after about the fourth day, they'll make it, you know.

They make 28 different types of shoes, from anywhere from a bar shoe, egg bar shoe, all the way up to the big things, up to the draft shoes.

And also, we make toe weights and side weights.

We make the whole thing here at school.

- [Al] For some of the book learning, Bucky calls on his veterinarian friends from Knoxville to Nashville, such as Dr. B.L.

Reynolds, who hails from Cookville.

- It wouldn't make a cutting horse or a roping horse probably because the foot would not withstand that.

- My students are trained in the anatomy.

That's a big field.

If a student goes through the school and learns the anatomy and keeps up reading, continuing with studying all the time, he'll be a better qualified farrier in the field because- - [Al] But the most important part of Bucky's schooling comes when the students actually have the hands-on experience in the field.

- What we're trying to do, Billy, is get right to the heart of the abscess.

We as farriers, we don't want to, we have to make sure that if one has an abscess, tell the owner, because this type of work is not our job.

It belongs to the veterinarian.

Hands-on experiences is a natural thing.

That's where you learn.

You sit back and watch.

You don't know it, but when you're hand on hand to me is when you're underneath there and you've been to school and learned.

Now, as a student, now is this shoe level?

- Like that heel a little high?

- Right.

See, I pulled a little bone around you.

I just wanna make sure that you was catching.

- That's right.

- [Al] For the prospective students, they passed the first test in just finding Bucky School in Bloomington Springs.

It's somewhere up there in Putnam County.

But for those in the profession, well, they all know who Bucky Hatfield is.

- Oh, they hear from me, all the way from Franklin, all the way down to Lewisburg, all way to Clarksburg, all the way to Knoxville.

- They know who you are.

- Oh, yes.

Now they know who I am.

- [Al] One of those two have gained from Bucky's philosophy of small classes and hands-on experience was Billy Hicks, who was the last graduate of 1989.

With diploma safely in hand, it was now back to the workaday world for Billy Hicks.

Bucky Hatfield does not operate the largest school in the state.

There are many more students enrolled in medical schools, law schools, and engineering schools.

But his students are no less thoroughly trained than those who are attending classes in Nashville, Memphis or Knoxville.

Bucky's been at this for some 31 years.

He realizes he's not going to be around forever, but he wants to make sure that the knowledge he has is imparted to those who are going to be around when he isn't.

And for that, we can be grateful to Bucky Hatfield.

- Good job, good job.

That's a good job, good job.

- Yes, sir.

(bright music) (horse neighing) - Now, those beautiful horses sure seem grateful for Bucky's work, and we're sure the training he gave is still influencing farriers today.

Sadly, Bucky passed away back in 2017, but not before receiving many accolades for his work and for the school, including an induction into the brotherhood of Working Farrier's Hall of Fame.

And now for our very last story, the Jack Daniel's name is recognized all around the world, but did you know they hold an annual barbecue invitational championship in the well-known town of Lynchburg as well?

And watch closely, you might just see some famous legends like Bill Hall and Tandy Rice judging.

Janet Tyson went to the second annual competition and got a taste of barbecue for herself way back in 1990.

- Now, there are two things that we at Tennessee Crossroads really love to do.

One, of course, is to bring you good stories, and the other is to eat.

So we followed our noses today to Lynchburg, Tennessee to what just might be the largest backyard barbecue in the world.

At the second annual Jack Daniel's barbecue invitational, world champions are going rib to rib in some real hot competition.

(upbeat music) - Good, eh?

- Mm-hmm, nice work.

Ever since man invented fire, he's used it to cook up some real enjoyable concoctions.

Judging from the hot competition at this second annual world class cookoff, Jack Daniel's may soon also be synonymous with barbecue.

While champion teams from all over the country and around the world smoked, basted, and stirred up winning sauces, the people lined up to sample the sizzlings.

It was a country fair-type event with lots of fun for the whole family.

It had everything from greasy fingers for mom and dad to a greased pole contest for the kids.

(crowd cheering) (crowd laughing) But there were some people here who took their efforts very seriously.

- I accept my duty to be a Jack Daniel's world championship invitational barbecue judge, so that truth, justice, excellent in barbecue in the American way of life may be (indistinct) forever.

(bell tolling) - [Speaker] Come and get it, dinner is served.

(announcer speaking indistinctly) - [Janet] While some ran for their lives, the barbecue cookers prepared succulent servings for the judge's consideration.

Most of the participants had been cooking their entries all night.

A team from Brazil had traveled for three days only to have their meat confiscated when they entered the U.S. (speaking in foreign language) - Okay, I got doesn't speak English.

What did he say?

- Well, they said they had a lot of problem because of the difficulty of the language, and they didn't know where in the hell was Lynchburg.

And they had a lot of problem trying to find out, to communicate, to really find out the destination and how to get there.

- [Janet] The team from Thailand traveled the farthest, but for more than just the competition.

- I enjoy doing because I think barbecue contest, probably the only event in United States that people are so friendly, and you really feel like you get to know the local people and you really feel like, you know, one-on-one, the personal touch that you don't get anywhere else.

- [Janet] They even shared their secret ingredient.

- This Thai sauce here that I put in our barbecue sauce is a key ingredient.

We use this because it's authentic, hot, spicy sauce from Thailand.

- [Janet] I can't read that, what does that say?

- Oh, it's called Siracha.

It's a district in Thailand that produce hot sauce, like Louisiana produce tabasco.

- [Janet] The apple city cookers from Murfreesboro, Illinois won this year's Memphis in May competition.

What's their secret?

- Well, we use the applesauce, we base with applesauce, and we use applesauce in the barbecue sauce itself.

- Hmm, that is wonderful.

What's your secret ingredient?

- Just a lot of hard work.

- A lot of hard work?

(laughs) The judges had some hard work too, but all of them seem to throw themselves into the job with gusto.

Tandy Rice and Sharon Sanders, food writer for the Chicago Sun Times pitted rebel against Yankee taste buds.

- She fancies this one right here, and this one is so much superior.

I can't imagine what's going on in her mind.

- Well, you've got the remnants of some judging here.

What qualifies you to judge a barbecue content?

- It's very simple.

I watch Bill Hall and I do everything he does.

He's a world famous authority on chitlins and barbecue.

When he nods his head, I say, great.

- Great, yeah.

- Charlie Vargas, owner of the world famous Rendezvous restaurant in Memphis, knows his barbecue.

- They do a good job.

The tenderness is there, they cook it well.

I could see some that maybe use a little more hickory than I would normally use.

I don't, you know, but it's just their way of cooking.

It's a matter of the taste and what part of the country you're from.

- [Janet] Bill Hall had so much fun as a judge last year.

He came back for seconds.

- Yes, because it's small town America, small town Tennessee, and I grew up in a small town like this and things like this are just a part of me.

I'd rather be doing this than at the opera in some big city or something like that.

- Ribs beats opera any day, huh?

- Oh, definitely.

There's only one thing better and that's fishing, and so if I can't do one, I'll take the second best.

- One of the prizes today is awarded in the category of people's choice.

That means that everybody who comes today gets to wander around and sample the barbecue and then vote for their favorite.

So in the spirit of that event, it's time to pig out.

(bright music) Along with the Crossroads crew, there were some other pretty tough judges.

My son Matthew, usually a picky eater, turned into a piggy eater.

This barbecue passed taste test by some of the most discriminating tasters in the world.

- Wanna dip?

- You wanna dip it?

Well, honey, it's kind of hard.

Daddy will dip it for you.

Okay.

- Want some?

- Hi.

(laughs) It even got rave reviews from people with more uneducated pallets.

- You're from LA?

- Yeah, yeah.

- So what do you know about barbecue?

- Well, there was no arugula, lettuce, or shiitake mushrooms, but it was fine.

It was great, it was great, yeah.

If they served any of what I tasted today in a restaurant in Los Angeles, there'd be lines around the block.

- [Janet] When the smoke cleared, there were well-fed folks everywhere, dining pretty high on the hog.

It was enough to make you lose your head over barbecue.

- Well, that story just proves that Tennessee Crossroads has always been hot on the barbecue trail since the very beginning.

Today, in addition to having several good barbecue restaurants in Lynchburg, it is still home to the Jack Daniel's Barbecue Invitational Championship every October.

So keep that in mind when you are planning your next visit.

And speaking of trips, that brings us to the end of another trip back in time with Tennessee Crossroads.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Remember, you can always see this and all of your other favorite local shows on the PBS app.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) (light music)