Blue Ridge Country January/February 2022 - 15

THE GOOD WALK
" Soft and easy,
good and greasy;
Crazy 'bout them
greasy greens! "
PINK ANDERSON
The musical aspect of walking Spartanburg includes both displays for area musicians and
GPS-enabled snippets of their songs and music.
W
hat a hoot!
Laurie and I are on a street in downtown
Spartanburg, South Carolina, and
we're acting kind of silly, singing along
with a recording by Spartanburg-raised
Pink Anderson, " Soft and easy, good and
greasy; Crazy 'bout them greasy greens! "
Yet, no passersby are paying attention to us, as they
all seem to know that we're on a walking tour of the
Music Trail and just doing what probably scores of other
people who have come before us have done.
The tour runs for several blocks with signs identifying
close to two dozen individuals or bands that were influential
in a variety of musical genres.
The really cool part, though, is that
with a GPS-enabled smart phone
you can listen to snippets of songs
from these artists while also learning
more about them.
Singing along with " Fire on the
Mountain, " we learned that the
Marshall Tucker Band, was not
named for a band member, but
rather a local piano tuner. Pink
Anderson's blues guitar playing
inspired the name of the worldfamous
British band, Pink Floyd.
Spartanburg-born Don Reno copenned
" Feudin' Banjos, " which
became famous as the " Dueling
Banjo " theme in the movie " Deliverance. "
" Singin' Billy " Walker's
1835 book on shape note singing
was the first to combine a poem
by John Newton with a traditional
song called " New Britain, " giving us the version of
" Amazing Grace " that is popular today.
Much of Spartanburg's Historic Downtown Walking
Tour coincides with the same streets as those on the
Music Trail, so it's easy to learn a bit about the city's
past events. The clock tower dates from the 1870s, when
town visitors arrived by horse and buggy (although it
has been moved from its original location).
The mid-1920s Montgomery Building became infaWHERE
TO STAY
AND DINE
The obvious choice is AC Hotel
Spartanburg (marriott.com/
hotels/travel/spaac-ac-hotelspartanburg),
just across the
street from the Music Trail's first
stop.
For a most delicious (and
mous for two unrelated plans that were hatched in the
offices of the Soil Conservation Service. In the 1930s,
this federal agency distributed kudzu to landowners in
the south as a way to control erosion-all of us know
how that turned out! During
World War II maps developed by
the agency were used by those
planning the bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Interestingly,
the building also housed the
Carolina Theater where, in 1956,
Elvis Presley gave four concerts in
a single day.
As our walk was nearing its
filling!) breakfast, it's the
Downtown Deli and Donuts
(downtowndelianddonuts.com).
It's a good name, but comes nowhere
close to describing the
dining pleasures to be experienced
here. We are still dreaming
about the huge cinnamon
roll French toast topped by a
cream cheese icing drizzle.
end, we came to the sign for
Clara Smith just a few minutes
after singing along to " Amazing
Grace. " She was known as the
" Queen of the Moaners " in the
1920s, and we decided her song,
" It's Tight Like That, " was probably
just a bit too risqué for us to
sing in public.
Find out more about Leonard's
walking and hiking adventures at
www.habitualhiker.com.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 15
http://www.marriott.com/ http://www.downtowndelianddonuts.com http://www.habitualhiker.com
Blue Ridge Country January/February 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country January/February 2022
