Episode 3739

- [Announcer] "Tennessee Crossroads" is made possible in part by Discover Tennessee Trails and Byways. Discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made in Tennessee experiences, showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at TNTrailsAndByways.com.

- [Phil] I'm Tennessee Tech President, Phil Oldham. Here in Cookeville, Tennessee's college town, we are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that living wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu.

- [Announcer] Amazon, a proud supporter of programming on public television. Amazon focuses on building long-term programs that have a lasting impact in communities where employees live and work. More at aboutamazon.com.

- This time on "Tennessee Crossroads," we'll meet the quirky comedy team of Shannon and Rod in Nashville. Then, enjoy a taste of history and fine food in Hendersonville. We'll discover some Rock n soul history in where else but Memphis, and wind up at the Harmony Lane Farm and Creamery in Smithville. That's our lineup for this edition of "Tennessee Crossroads," everybody, I'm Joe Elmore. Welcome. Our first story is all about a pair of entertainers in Nashville. One is human, the other is made of wood. The human is named Shannon Schrum. His sidekick is named Rod. Together, they've entertained audiences worldwide while also preserving the art of ventriloquism.

- When I was five years old, saw this great ventriloquist and said, "I want to do that."

- Yeah, and he's been looking at dummies ever since.

- [Joe] Shannon Schrum has been a ventriloquist since growing up in rural Colorado, throwing his voice and eventually catching laughs from audiences around the world. And for most of those years, he's worked as the straight man beside the same wisecracking funny guy.

- Well, I'm Shannon, this is Rod.

- Yes, indeed. My name is Rod, and I'm made of wood.

- What kind of wood?

- Oak wood.

- Oak wood?

- Yeah.

- What's your sister made of?

- Oak Wood.

- Yeah. And your dad?

- Oak Wood. I got a cousin, he's all mixed up.

- What is he?

- Particle board.

- [Joe] If you're a long time Nashvillian and this pair looks familiar, well, there's a good reason for that.

- [Shannon] Many years we were out at Opryland and just had a great time doing our show.

- [Rod] Working with all the great legends in show business.

- Yeah, we were very blessed. We got to work with some amazing people like Minnie Pearl.

- [Rod] And Linda Lee, Porter Wagoner, all the legends. And we learned so much from them too.

- [Joe] You even got Minnie's hat over there.

- [Rod] We do, we do. We actually do.

- [Joe] Shannon and Rod also worked as the warmup act for the "Oh Heehaw Show." Why they even made off with the show's trademark cornfield. This room in Shannon's home is like a personal museum full of artifacts and special memories.

- [Shannon] It has been a lifetime of collecting and we just love spending time in here. It's surrounding yourself with things that make you happy. That I think is important.

- [Rod] Yeah, it's not really like a man cave. No, it's like a puppet parlor.

- Puppet parlor

- Because you know, he plays with dolls.

- Will you cut that out?

- [Joe] Entertainers have been playing with dolls for centuries, and while the exact origin of ventriloquism is debatable, we do know it gained widespread popularity in the 19th century. A man named Fred Russell was regarded as the father of modern ventriloquism, but it was none other than Edgar Bergen who earned the most fame and fortune.

- [Shannon] No one has ever achieved greater heights in ventriloquism than Edgar Bergen. I mean, he was just a superstar in his day in the 1930s and for many decades after that. So there was a lot of merchandise. Edgar Bergen and Walt Disney were the two kings of merchandise in the day.

- I'm pretty smart, pretty smart, I can count to 10.

- Count to 10.

- One, two, three, four, five.

- Count higher.

- Oh, one, two, three, four, five.

- Cut that out.

- [Joe] Shannon is so good at this form of stagecraft, you almost forget he's sharing his voice with a dummy. He's not really an extension of your personality. He's like a different person to me.

- Well, he seems like he's just, he's everything that I would like to be and he says everything I would like to say, but I couldn't.

- So I'm the one that gets to lay with it.

- [Joe] Ventriloquism might have been only a hobby for Shannon had he not been inspired by Russell Scott, AKA Blinky the Clown.

- [Shannon] Blinky was a clown in the 1950s when children's television shows were popular. Blinky was in Denver and I grew up in Colorado and I watched Blinky on television.

- [Rod] Blinky really got him into the business.

- [Shannon] That's right.

- [Rod] Because he watched him every day.

- [Shannon] Every day when I was a little kid. In fact, I was on his show.

- [Rod] No kidding.

- [Shannon] I was on his show.

- In Denver?

- In Denver, yes. And he would sing "Happy Birthday" to the kids every day. And it was just a blast. But that one moment, that one experience just inspired me to go into the entertainment business.

- [Joe] The two became close friends. And Shannon, who's also a talented artist, created this tribute to his hero.

- [Shannon] Spent about four and a half months painting that, and I wanted to use the Norman Rockwell style. Because I wanted it to tell the story. There's so many elements in that painting that are connected to parts of his life. That is Jerry Lewis as The Nutty Professor.

- [Joe] And this is Shannon's workshop. While entertaining is pretty much on the back burner these days, Shannon spends a lot of time in here creating puppets and puppet pieces for other ventriloquists around the country.

- Yeah. I do a lot of puppets. I paint puppets and I build puppets. A lot of times they'll just send me the finished puppet head and I'll paint it.

- [Joe] Shannon has a enjoyed an incredible career as a ventriloquist, a performer, and craftsman, making people laugh while preserving some of the history of this timeless entertainment art form.

- [Shannon] We're just saving them to preserve them for somebody else to take care of them in the future.

- [Joe] Well, it's good to meet you, Rod.

- Nice to meet you too, Joe.

- In fact, I tell you what, we love "Tennessee Crossroads." It's our favorite show on public television.

- You took the words right out of my mouth.

- I usually do.

- For all the Tennessee history buffs out there, the name Lyncoya Jackson will ring a bell. Some savvy restaurateurs in Sumner County have combined a love of history and a love of great food into one eatery. Miranda Cohen tells the tale of the Lyncoya Cafe.

- [Miranda] Alexandra Sommese and Seth Yeargan are the owners of the busy Lyncoya Cafe on Saunders Ferry Road in Hendersonville. This dynamic duo have plenty of restaurant experience between them. In fact, that's how they met. So when this spacious, well-lit location came on the market, they inked the deal, both on the property, and on their dreams of owning their own eatery.

- I honestly knew with the partnership that Seth and I had, we're both non-quitters. We both will go to the end. So I knew that we wouldn't let this place fail. It's just a blessing. I would've never imagined. I mean, I always wanted to open up something in my lifetime and I didn't realize at 28 I'd open up a full service restaurant and it'd be a success.

- [Miranda] And if you think the name Lyncoya sounds familiar, you're right. Lyncoya is the name of the Native American infant orphaned during the Creek War in 1811. Then, commanding general Andrew Jackson took the child back to his home at The Hermitage.

- [Alexandra] A lot of people don't know the story of Lyncoya Jackson. We like the story, we like the history. We thought it applied to our location.

- [Miranda] The story of Lyncoya Jackson is printed on every menu, along with lots of savory favorites, sure to tempt your taste buds with a great meal, and maybe even a midnight snack.

- [Alexandra] We wanted to do a bunch of American classics with our own spin on them. We pretty much take American classics and we embellish them. We make them bigger. Like everyone here always compliments our portion sizes. They always go home with a to-go box. You have leftovers.

- You know, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel, we're just trying to serve some quintessential American classics. But use real ingredients. We make our own dressings. We make our own marinades. We have the beef here, of course, but we're not just doing just the burger. We marinate the beef in au jus for a while. Make sure that it's nice and juicy and has a little depth of flavor.

- [Miranda] At the Lyncoya Cafe, they serve up plenty of meat and three southern classics like Meatloaf, Mom Peggy's famous pot roast, their signature firecracker chicken, and much more.

- I really like the pot roast. That's like one of my favorite things. It's just comfort food. It's really, really good. I also like their fish and chips is nice, and their french fries are really good.

- [Miranda] There's also a colossal burger.

- [Alexandra] It's two big patties, cheese, everything topping, all these add-ons.

- [Miranda] Crispy and delicate fish and chips.

- [Alexandra] You can't go many places and find a good fish and chips. We have a really awesome beer batter on our haddock and people love it.

- [Miranda] But it was Seth's trip to Canada that inspired one of their most popular dishes.

- [Alexandra] He fell in love with poutine like most people do, and he decided we've gotta have it here. No one else is doing it here. And we did it in our own fashion. And yeah, it's our top selling appetizer for sure.

- That's poutine. It's french fries with roast beef gravy with pieces of roast beef in it, with fried onions on top. I get it every time I come in here, which is a lot.

- [Alexandra] Everything here is going to be high quality ingredients. Our big salad that everyone knows is the Lyncoya Cobb, A loaded Cobb salad, and that's always super fresh. So yeah, it's really important that you have very top tier ingredients. Everything's sourced locally. The only thing that's not are our Amaroso rolls. They're shipped from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and you can't do a Philly without it. It's that squishy, nice, beautiful bread.

- Everybody gets it wrong down south. They don't use the right bread. You have to get the bread in from Philadelphia. Six pieces of cheese.

- The secret is definitely getting out in Sumner County. The Lyncoya Cafe is quickly becoming a hotspot and a must stop on foodie travel lists, both for the delicious, abundant menu items, and also to take in some of the famous Tennessee treasures adorning the walls, like this giant wall clock that announced the time at Twitty City for decades. It's said things naturally find their way home. And that's exactly what happened with this huge cuckoo clock on the wall. Alexandra and Seth found this at an antique shop in Manchester. It had once belonged to Conway Twitty and lived here in Twitty City. So it was just like coming home.

- [Alexandra] I think we've changed the mindset of a millennial business owner in a lot of people's eyes. For someone to believe in us, especially us being young business owners, it's really remarkable. It's a different feeling than walking into a a corporate restaurant. This mom and pop feel, the local feel. Feel everyone and their mother wants that.

- Thanks Miranda. Well now we're headed to Memphis and the FedEx Forum. No, not for basketball, this time for music. That's where you'll find the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum. And that's where Danielle Allen learned about the legendary musicians and their lasting impact on the world.

- [Danielle] These are the songs we know and love. Performed by the artists we'll never forget. And their music lives on right here at the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum. Located on the legendary Beale Street, this museum takes you on a journey spanning decades, from sharecroppers singing their troubles away to the undeniable sounds of Stax Records. This place covers it all.

- Everybody knows Memphis because of music, and it's such a diverse city from a musical standpoint. Blues, rock and roll, soul, R&B, gospel, opera. It's really part of the whole fabric of the city, of what we are and how we are, and how the music came together and how it exploded here in Memphis.

- [Danielle] John Dole is the Executive Director of the museum. For the past 20 years, his mission has been simple. Make sure no one forgets the rich musical history of the Bluff City. And there are a lot of stories to tell. Like the legend of Robert Johnson.

- This is one of the coolest things of the museum when you come in, this you can see through the front window. But Robert Johnson, one of the greatest blues musicians of all time, started out as a poor blues musician. And so it created one of music's greatest legends of how he was here around Memphis, disappeared for a year, came back. And when he came back, he was truly one of the greatest blues musicians of all time. Eric Clapton has recorded an entire LP about him. Everybody knows Robert Johnson who admires the blues. And so it created the whole legend that he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads of Highway 61 which runs by the museum and Highway 49 in the Mississippi Delta because his talent just changed exponentially.

- [Danielle] After learning about Robert Johnson, the audio guide takes you through 300 minutes worth of history with over 100 songs. And yes, people dance their way through the museum, especially when they reach this section.

- [John] We protect some famous things here. We've had the original console from Sun Studios here, we have the guitar that Elvis serenaded Priscilla when he was in the Armed Forces in Germany. That's on display here. We actually have Ike Turner's piano that he recorded "Rocket 88" here. We've got the microphone from Carl Perkins, where he recorded "Blue Suede Shoes" here. But more importantly, we have that storyline that the Smithsonian put together.

- [Danielle] That storyline from the Smithsonian started as a simple exhibition in the late 1900s. After extensive research, including interviews with legends like BB King, the Smithsonian turned their hard work into a museum, but they made sure it covered more than just music.

- [John] At the same time Dr. King was leading a civil rights movement socially across our country and really throughout the whole world, influencing folks like Mandela, et cetera, our Memphis musicians were carrying forth a civil rights movement in the studios like High Records and Stax Records, and even at Sun and more contemporary studios like Ardent, where it was just what they did. It's how we create music.

- [Danielle] People travel from all over the world to visit the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum. In fact, 40% of their daily visitors are from overseas, including Australia, China, and Brazil. Proving that music has the power to speak to people of all ages, whether they're walking in Memphis in their blue suede shoes or just a pair of sneakers.

- [John] And this is a lifestyle museum. Whether you are 64 like me, or whether you're 24, this museum and Memphis music is gonna touch you on some aspect. So you're coming through in your experience in life. Folks do not leave here disappointed. They don't leave here with bad comments on our comment sheets because my grandfather had a jukebox just like that and when he ran a store in whatever city, or I remember growing up and my grandmother played Al Green in the kitchen when she was preparing Sunday dinner. It's lifestyle all the way through the museum.

- Our next story involves some adorable four-legged creatures who provide a number of healthy benefits. Ones that will keep you clean, keep you fed, and warm in your heart. Cindy Carter takes us to the Harmony Lane Farm and Creamery in Smithville.

- [Cindy] Once upon a time, goats in America were primarily known for their presence in children's stories and fairytales, you know, like those Billy Goats Gruff? But now, thanks to pop culture trends like goat yoga and screaming or fainting goat videos, you might say goats are getting their day in the sun.

- They're so smart. People don't give them enough credit.

- [Cindy] And at Harmony Lane Farm and Creamery in Smithville, Tennessee, you simply gotta give credit to the goats for all the cheese, milk, soap, and yes, smooches, they provide.

- [Julie] Not only do we make yummy products, we're we're like a destination. We make a lot of memories. A lot of families come here that are traveling. Now we're the number one attraction actually in Smithville.

- [Cindy] Every day, Harmony Lane owner, Julie David, and her staff welcome visitors from all over, offering an informative and entertaining look at the inner workings of a working goat farm.

- All right, Ms. Julie's coming out.

- [Cindy] Opening her gates to tourists was a way to earn a living while living a farmer's life. Though Julie didn't start out like this, a digestive issue led her to goat's milk as an alternative to medicine.

- That's really how it started. And I kind of wanted to do something for myself. So I was buying some goat milk from a man down the way, and all of a sudden I said, "Why don't I just get a few goats?" And that way I have milk for my own supply. Those four goats quickly turned into 16.

- [Cindy] Today, Julie and her staff wrangle roughly 150 goats of various sizes, shapes, and responsibilities

- All the way down, pay attention.

- [Cindy] Visitors don't just learn about milking goats, they do it.

- You're milking a dairy goat. You are milking a dairy goat. Yes you are.

- A hands-on experience that really resonates. Now this is what the farm is known for, goat cuddling. Visitors can spend quality time with a baby goat. And health experts say there are real benefits to this. It releases endorphins that calm you down, it lowers blood pressure. And Hannah is just so doggone cute. Hannah and her friends are wrapped in blankets and placed in waiting laps where they just chill for a while. Julie says these kids are sweet because they're bottle-fed from birth. She says if their mamas do the honors, the goats are unfriendly and don't play nice with each other.

- Being a bottle baby, they're friendly, they're lovable, and they're just fun to watch. You don't even have to cuddle them. Just watching them in the field and all of their little antics is quite a joy.

- [Cindy] As fun as it is to frolic on the farm, the goats do have a job to do. The milk they make is used to make in-house cheese or Chevre, seven different varieties. There's also caramels, ice cream, fudge.

- They're milk. You can do so much with it. I mean, Cleopatra used to bath in goat's milk.

- [Cindy] Harmony Lane does that too. Bars and bags of sweet-smelling goat's milk soap and lotions are mixed and made here daily.

- [Julie] It's pushed me to do things I probably wouldn't normally have done. I'm a little stronger than I thought I was.

- [Cindy] The goats may get the glory, but they share these 64 acres with dozens of other farm-friendly, family-friendly animals that visitors can also feed and pet. Donkeys, llamas, emus, pigs. And. 18 Angus beef cattle led by.

- Here's old Ferdinand.

- Hey Ferdinand.

- Right here.

- [Cindy] Ferdinand the bull weighs in at 3,200 pounds, and he and his friends don't mind the periodic pasture invasions as long as someone brings the snacks.

- You love it

- At the end of the day, I love what I do. I'm passionate about it. I love sharing, I love the knowledge. Children don't know where their meat comes from. I can drive them into an Angus beef herd and say, "This is your hamburger and steak."

- [Cindy] Julie proudly points out her farm gives visitors an opportunity to learn, the opportunity to try, and the opportunity to make some pretty cool memories.

- So this is our Nigerian dwarf habitat. You can actually go in here and spend time with these little dwarfs.

- [Cindy] Between the product production, milking, and merriment, there's a lot of moving parts and critters on this small Tennessee farm. But it's the goats, all those happy attention-grabbing goats that are the reason every moving part moves in harmony at Harmony Lane.

- With that, we gotta pack it up and go. But not without a reminder to join us on our website, tennesseecrossroads.org, a place where you can also download that PBS app. So we'll see you next time.

- [Announcer] "Tennessee Crossroads" is made possible in part by Discover Tennessee Trails and Byways. Discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made in Tennessee experiences, showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at TNTrailsAndByways.com.

- [Phil] I'm Tennessee Tech President, Phil Oldham. Here in Cookeville, Tennessee's college town, we are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that living wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu.

- [Announcer] Amazon, a proud supporter of programming on public television. Amazon focuses on building long-term programs that have a lasting impact in communities where employees live and work. More at aboutamazon.com.- Tennessee.