JasonK
Nashville story 2015 Frank Hamrick
I walked down Broadway past a string of bars open early Friday
afternoon. Four of the clubs had live bands playing Merle Haggard
covers. Three of them were performing “Mama Tried”. Sandwiched among
faux, Nash Vegas honkytonks and urban cowboy outfitters; in a narrow
downtown Nashville building was Hatch Show Print, a letterpress shop
that had been in business since 1879.
The first ten feet deep inside was devoted to selling broadsides,
monoprints, restrikes and postcards. Tourists flipped through bins of
surplus commemorative concert posters searching for prints of their
favorite stars. On the other side of a counter that divided the
storefront from the rest of the building were a dozen folks dedicated to
using hand carved imagery and hundred-year-old wooden letters to design
and print posters. This felt much different than staring past the menu
into the kitchen at a Burger King.
A tattooed woman with Betty
