Episode 3245

- This time on Tennessee Crossroads, we explore historic Cannonsburgh in the heart of Murfreesboro. We'll explore a popular barbecue destination in the middle of Memphis. Then checkout the scenic Gracehill B&B in the Smokies, and meet a Nashville artist who uses actual objects to create unique portraits. All that on this edition of Tennessee Crossroads. I'm Joe Elmore, glad to have you. A wise man once said that people without knowledge of their history, origin and culture are like trees without roots. Well, the city of Murfreesboro took those words to heart and created a special place to honor its roots. It's called Cannonsburgh and Rickey Chick, the latest member of our Crossroads family, takes us there.

- [Female Tour Guide] Hi, if you'll just follow the lady with the sign. We'll go right through here and we'll go in through the gate.

- [Ricky] There is a magical in Murfreesboro, where a quick turn off the busiest street in town also turns back the pages of time. The historic village of Cannonsburgh, has been a part of the Murfreesboro parks department for nearly 50 years. But the buildings that make it so special have been around much longer than that. As parks director, Nate Williams, explains.

- In 1974, the city embarked on a national bicentennial project. The whole nation was celebrating and encouraged communities across the United States to do something that would be unique to mark the bicentennial of the United States so leaders of Murfreesboro at that time decided to create this village. Bring in buildings from across the county from the late 1800s to the early 1900s and it ended up winning a national award, third place in the country, ended up winning $75,000. And an interesting fact, it's the only one of these projects that's still around today.

- [Rickey] Part of the reason Cannonsburgh is still around, can be attributed to a devoted staff and volunteers; time traveling tour guides like Kathy Owen who bring the village to life.

- A lot of them are folks that came on tours with their grandchildren and became interested in the place and said, hey what can I do? And we have several that are retired teachers and they love it.

- Throughout our park system, we have tons of volunteers. We recognize them every year and Cannonsburgh is a huge percentage of that. They come out and they bring their expertise and their passion for these buildings and this area. We can't say enough how much we appreciate all they do to make this village what it is.

- What in the world have we got here? I've been looking for some desperadoes.

- [Man In Crowd] You got 'em, man.

- Man this is a desperate looking crew, if I ever did see one. I'm also not only the Marshall of this here Cannonsburgh, I'm the truancy officer.

- [Rickey] But Marshall, these kids are in school. What better way to learn than by immersing them in a bygone era, surrounded by actual buildings and artifacts from Rutherford County's past.

- We do a lot of school tours, so when we have the school tours lined up, I'm the one that kind of organizes and gets the kids started. I generally start with the mill. There were a lot of mills in this area. The equipment in the mill is over a hundred years old and it actually does work. The schoolhouse is very interesting. It's set up as a conscription school and the people that lived in the community would pay the teachers to come in and the teachers would actually take turns living with the different families. That seems to be the favorite thing of a lot of the children on the tour. It's real different for them. That seems to be one of their favorites. It's interesting. I always try to ask them what's missing from the buildings, the children, and first off, they'll say a computer, then they'll finally come to the fact that there's no bathroom, but they seem to like the parts that they're not even familiar with.

- [Rickey] A telephone switchboard certainly falls into that category, like the one in Ms. Ada's house.

- It was the home of Ms. Ada Roland. She was employed by a private telephone company. She came as a widow with a young child. We actually have her original switchboard and battery cabinet. She was on call 24 hours a day, and actually knew everything that happened in the community before anybody else.

- [Rickey] Wouldn't that be a dream job for the town gossip. Listening to Kathy, it's easy to tell that she's found her dream job as well. So Kathy, tell me about the Leeman House.

- The Leeman House is my personal favorite. It was actually located outside of Murfreesboro. There were 10 children raised here, five boys and five girls. They had a rather large farm, tobacco and cattle raisers and we are lucky enough to have some of the family that still comes around and can share stories of Thanksgiving and all sorts of things.

- Any idea what this is? Most visitors don't know what this is but back in the day, for those of us who are vertically challenged, it was a very handy device. It's a mounting block and it was used so women could mount their horses. And when those horses needed shoes, where did they go? The local blacksmith, of course.

- [Blacksmith] An interesting thing about steel, it sticks to the steel, but when it gets to critical temperature, that orange hot, it doesn't stick anymore.

- [Rickey] Now if you prefer horseless carriages, you can check out the classic cars at the Stone's River Garage. But beware, it's a speed trap. Must be related to that marshal.

- Uh huh. Uh huh.

- And this is a great place for people to come and pause for a second and reflect on more simple times.

- You might've heard your grandparents tell you about it, but if you come here, you really get to experience it for just a little while. It's a taste of a life that doesn't really exist anymore.

- [Rickey] Except in a magical place, near a busy street in the Boro.

- Here's a fun fact for you. Cannonsburgh was actually Murfreesboro's first name but only for about a month. When you think of Memphis and think of food, you're probably thinking about, yup, barbecue. As a Memphis native, Danielle Allen knows a thing or two about finding the real deal, as she did recently on a visit to a place called the Bar-B-Q Shop.

- [Danielle] Laughter?

- [Danielle] Good food.

- [Female Customer] Oh, the ribs. They're my favorite.

- [Danielle] And a stellar reputation.

- There's other places that have more of a name, but in my opinion, I've eaten at all of them, and this is the best place in town so I would recommend anybody that's looking for good barbecue to come here.

- [Danielle] These are some of the things, the Bar-B-Q Shop on Madison Avenue is known for. It's not their only claim to fame though. They're the originators of barbecue spaghetti, which has become a Memphis staple.

- The good thing about eating Memphis barbecue is you're gonna go to a Memphis barbecue place and go, oh that's kinda like this place or that's the second Bar-B-Q Shop. Everything has a complete different taste and I've never eaten a Memphis barbecue spaghetti that was even close to the next one. To be honest, our barbecue spaghetti is sweet, it's oily looking, but no one else will have the flavor that we have in those noodles.

- [Danielle] One thing that is duplicated in this restaurant is quality. The owner of the Bar-B-Q Shop, Eric Vernon, ensures that every bite is just as delicious as the one before it.

- We have to make sure we're maintaining the way we cook our meats and we cook our ribs, the way we make that coleslaw and the barbecue sause and the way we do the barbecue spaghetti. Even daily, my job is to go back there and check that barbecue spaghetti throughout the day to make sure it has the right consistency, thickness and taste that it should have and that's it. I'm gonna taste the coleslaw. I'm gonna taste the beans. I am to look at the meat when it comes off in the morning and it is supposed to meet the same criteria that we've had every day for years.

- [Danielle] That consistency is vital to the success of the Bar-B-Q Shop. With so many barbecue places in the Bluff City, their commitment to getting it right every time makes them stand out in the Memphis crowd.

- [Eric] I think all Memphis barbecue sauces give you a smokey flavor but ours is a little bit of sweet, a little bit of tangy mixed together with that smokey flavor and I think that's what sets us apart from everybody else.

- [Danielle] That one of a kind sauce is made from scratch every day. It's then used to baste, marinate or add flavor to meat that just falls right off the bone. But arriving to this delicious final product, is not always a quick process.

- [Eric] We actually start cooking in the evening and it cooks through the night and then we take if off in the morning when we get here. It's a 12 hour process. For our beef brisket, our Boston butts, ribs, of course, is much shorter, but anything that we're using like that, we've smoked it for 12 hours.

- Of course, one of the most popular items on the menus are the ribs. Now you can get these with a dry rub, or drenched in delicious barbecue sauce, or just do half and half. But no matter how you order them, one thing remains the same, each bite is infused with a delicious flavor that's been around for decades.

- [Eric] The Bar-B-Q Shop is, at this point, three generations and if we go back to the first generation, you have Brady and Lil's. Mr. Brady was a cook on a railroad and he had a love for cooking but his two favorite loves within cooking was pasta and barbecue, and so he set out to open up his own barbecue restaurant.

- [Danielle] Grady and Lil's made quite a name for itself in the '60s. In fact, their unmistakable barbecue flavor struck a chord with a legendary music group.

- Brady and Lil's was a big place for Stax musicians. Issac Hayes, you had Willie Mitchell, producer of Al Greene, and actually when the Beatles world tour came to Memphis, '63, '64, they went to visit Stax and they went to visit Willie Mitchell, and Willie Mitchell said, hey, go to Brady and Lil's, and the Beatles came and bought up all the ribs Brady had.

- [Danielle] Another customer who was impressed with the food was Eric's father, Frank. He ate at Brady and Lil's often and he was there in the '80s when Mr. Brady decided to hang up his apron for good.

- [Eric] Mr. Brady and my father were good friends and one day they were having a conversation and Mr. Brady said, hey, I don't wanna do this anymore, and my dad said, look, I wanna have my own restaurant again, I wanna be my own boss. I wish you would consider mentoring me and showing me everything about barbecue and they made a deal. And actually, when they went to sign the papers, he stopped and went in the other room and got the biggest Bible I'd ever seen, and say, hey, if you are going to run this restaurant, you're gonna need this Bible to make it through.

- [Danielle] Frank kept the Bible and many of of Mr. Brady's practices. He did, however, add a new flavor to things. They changed the name to the Bar-B-Q Shop and moved to a new location. Eric grew up watching all of this and helping with the business but he was cooking up a different type of career.

- [Eric] I was gonna get my business degree. I was gonna be a corporate guy and right when I graduated, my dad told me that he was thinking about selling it and said, you know what? I'll give you a year of my life. Since then we've been on the Bobby Flay show, we've been on Andrew Zimmern twice. We're hosting the New York Times 36 hours in Memphis video. We've just achieved so much since that time period and kinda never looked back.

- [Danielle] But just like his father, Eric wants to make sure some things never change.

- [Eric] My dad's was, I know you want to expand on things. I know you have degrees and you can keep us in the present, but don't change anything that's working and I'm a big believer of that. I've seen a lot of restaurants go through generational changes, that people come in and change some of the core things that were working and it doesn't last. So I'm never gonna mess with this barbecue sauce. I'm never gonna mess with the way we cook it. I'm never gonna mess with the way we prep things and make things daily. That's always gonna stay the same.

- Thanks a lot, Danielle. If you of to Smokey Mountain National Park, you'll have lots of choices when it come to overnight accommodations. You can rough it in a campsite or live it up in luxury at a hotel, or choose a B&B that offers a little pampering in a natural setting. We found such a place that's highly recommended, in more ways than one. Of course everyone wants to stay in a room with a great view and the Gracehill Inn, here, has one of the most fantastic in the Smokey area. But of course to get to the top, you gotta be prepared to climb. It's a steep climb, winding up the side of Little Round Top Mountain. You might even wonder if you'll make it. Well there's an encouraging sign. Once you arrive, you'll discover what Traveler magazine called the best view from a B&B in the country. Sitting on the border of the national park, Gracehill B&B is the highest home in the entire area.

- I am just very blessed to be here in Townsend, to be in the Smokies, and have the view that I have. And it changes every five minutes. It's never the same.

- [Joe] When owner, Kathy Janke, found the site for sale in the late 1990s, she knew she'd found the ideal spot for her dream home. The B&B was an afterthought.

- When I made the offer on this property, ironically, they took my first offer, and this is the one piece of property I would've paid more for because I knew that it was what I wanted. What I wanted was a Westerly view for my main deck and that's what I got here.

- [Joe] Gracehill was two and a half years in the making. Although she hired a professional contractor, Kathy and her brother handled the stack stonework. All 200 tons of it, as well as all the elaborate landscaping which incorporates water throughout the design. They also handled all the painting, wallpapering and tiling. The B&B's four rooms are distinctively decorated with antique furniture, original art and creatively chosen colors. But when urged to name the rooms, Kathy was perplexed for a while.

- [Kathy] Well, on someone walking through one day, he walked into the bedroom with the red ceiling and said, oh my gosh. It's Casablanca. And I looked at him and I said, oh yeah, and the room next door is Key Largo. I guess I was thinking of Humphrey Bogart, which is ironic because I didn't buy my first tv until I was 44 years old. I was not into the old movie thing but ultimately, that's what we named the rooms. The master bedroom on the main level is all Italian antiques and we kinda went with that scrolly work so I thought, well, Roman Holiday fits there. It became a little harder when I put the fourth bedroom in. I realized that it was not only old movie names, but they were also places and I had been to Africa and taken pictures of Kilimanjaro so that's a movie, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, but who wants to spend their honeymoon, in the Snows of Kilimanjaro so I went with Spellbound and I love Gregory Peck so we kind of got away from places there but that's how we came up with the names to the bedroom.

- [Joe] The B&B offers many other amenities, including places to read, enjoy the solitude, or even exercise thanks to this modern, well-equipped workout room. And then there's breakfast.

- Good morning. Breakfast will be served in 24 minutes on the front veranda.

- [Joe] Always a highlight of any visit to Gracehill, and always a display of Kathy's culinary competence.

- [Kathy] Breakfast every morning is different. I keep track of what my guests eat and I try to never repeat a menu. Now there's only so many different fruits out there so at some point when you've been here 30 bed nights, I'm repeating that you get an apple, but I try to cook it a different way.

- [Joe] Today's breakfast starts with popovers from a recipe that requires just the right ingredients and timing.

- You vent them and eat them within two or three minutes. If not, you have little rubber baby bumpers that you can bounce off the wall. The second course is a caramelized pear pistachio, and the third course is a caramelized onion, red pepper, baby potato smoked Gouda frittata with sausage on the side.

- [Joe] When the weather's nice, coffee, juice and breakfast are served on the spacious deck, complete with that fantastic view. It was interesting to converse with guests from all over the country who had come in search of their ideal Smokey Mountain adventure.

- My locals tend to spend more time on the property. My guests that come from all over the world are more inclined to head out into the park and to Cade's Cove or Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail or go hiking or things like that. When I get people on the phone that say, well if I'm here for two nights, is there something to keep me busy. I found myself saying, well, oh my Gosh, I can keep you busy for a week.

- [Joe] Then again, it may be hard to leave when your holiday home is a mountain retreat like this. And while guests come to Gracehill from all over the world, actually, the most gratifying part for Kathy is, they keep coming back.

- I love my work. My guests also allow me to live in my own home so yeah, it's a joy.

- Do you treasure your grandmother's sweater or perhaps your grandfather's pocket watch? Maybe your daughter's first drawings in school. There's something about objects that people used or created that make for a special connection with that person. Wayne Brezinka feels that connection, as Rob Wilds discovered at his studio.

- [Rob] Like many creative people, Wayne Brezinka came to Nashville with a dream. His was to design album covers. He did that and then his dream began to change, to change his artistic vision a bit and create portraits.

- I'm really drawn to people. I like the emotion in the face, the emotion on people's faces. I think just the eye tells a lot about somebody. We all have a story to tell and in those portraits, there are meaningful pieces of books and papers and notes pertaining to whatever subject that's being illustrated.

- [Rob] When you look at Wayne's work, it's clear that he uses a different technique to catch not only the look of a face but some of the feel, even the spirit of the person.

- It's media kind of assemblage, using old books and papers and glue and lots of paint, any found items and they're built kind of in 3D form and they kind of come off the canvas so they're assembled and give a lot of... In the end, they show a lot of depth and shadow and light.

- [Rob] And actual objects used to create the effect, objects that relate to the person in some way. Abraham Lincoln, his care worn face including pieces of actual newspapers from the day, photos of slaves, photos of young men who may have actually fought in the Civil War. John Seigenthaler, crusading newspaperman and stalwart of the Civil Rights movement.

- [Wayne] Mastheads from the Tennessean newspaper. There's a 1973 and a 1974 masthead within the portrait, as well as a 1982 USA Today newspaper, which he was very instrumental in starting. There's an original 1961 photo of Susan Wilber, who he saved, or rescued from the mobs in Montgomery, Alabama during the Freedom Rides. So that's the original press photograph that I had found online through, I believe, eBay that's in the portrait as well. I love history and so his image tells that story of his life.

- [Rob] And then there was Zach Sobiech, a teenager diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer who became an inspiration to millions through his music and his positive outlook on life. When Zach passed away, his parents contacted Wayne about a portrait. He agreed and then one day a box arrived at his studio.

- [Wayne] I got chills when I got the box initially. I mean, it's a pretty sacred box to work with, I thought. And so I said a prayer, literally, that however it might come to be, whether it would be created in a way that was supposed to be and end up honoring the family and honoring Zach. It's probably one of the hardest commissions I've ever done.

- [Rob] Embodied in the portrait, those irreplaceable pieces of Zac's life, a religious myth, family portraits, a tie repurposed as part of his shirt, a train ticket to Paris, the trip one of Zach's final requests. The objects themselves making the portrait even more powerful for those who view it.

- When you tell them that it's the actual pair of socks that were his favorite. They're that much more drawn to the portrait, or drawn in as opposed to a photograph; a second generation of an image. And for me as an artist, that is what I find the most interesting. If I can find authentic, original items of a person's story to use, it draws the audience that much closer to that portrait in the end, I think. They can feel that much more energy from it that if it were a photograph of the piece.

- Wayne knows all about the emotional power a work of art can have. Here at a show of his work at the O'More College of Design in Franklin, there is one piece that most definitely strikes an emotional cord with those who see it and with Wayne himself. So when I saw this, I knew something was amiss here. This is definitely not a portrait of a person. This is something that happened to you, then.

- It is, yeah. Again, based on my own story, as a child being sexually abused, and I was creating the image of the boy, this originally, you'll see the stripes are kind of peeling off but I kept telling myself, I gotta finish those stripes. I gotta... And then I thought, something in me went, no, you don't. Leave them peeling off. It's symbolic to me as part of telling the story that something's been taken or damaged. There's pain and there's things that happen to us in our life and unfortunately in my case, this is part of my story as well as many other people out there. Countless people have... A few of them broke down in tears when they saw it. One person said, this is the story of my granddaughter who was abused or this is my story. I've never told anybody until... You're the second person I've told.

- [Rob] Yes, whether faces recreated to tell a story or faces covered in masks whose story needs to be told, there's always a reaction, an appreciation, a conversation arising out of the works of art of Wayne Brezinka of Nashville.

- Well I hate to say it, but our time is just about up. In the meantime, why don't you check in on our website tennesseecrossroads.org follow us on Facebook and by all means, join us next week. See you then.