The Grammys and Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville mayor Karl Dean on his city's rising star and its hope to expand its music repertoire beyond country.
Music fans get your DVRs ready — the Grammy Nominations Concert is tonight on CBS. For the first time ever, the concert won’t be held in Los Angeles, but, in fact, it’s moved east to Music City, USA: Nashville, Tenn.
Nashville mayor Karl Dean acknowledges music’s huge role in the image of his city. From artists to the music industry, Nashville owes much of its lower-than-average unemployment to jobs in and around music. And that music isn’t just country — and not just music, for that matter.
“Our number one employer is health care,” says Dean. “I mean, Nashville is a city that’s probably the health care management center of the United States, if not the world.”
Dean also credits the hospitality industry and the city’s universities as other sources of its good fortune. “Those things have really given us a diverse economy that has made it possible for us to get through the recession probably a little bit better than most places.”