Travel Feature
Bucky likes to ride his motorcycle just outside of Nashville's city limits. "That’s a beautiful ride ... great countryside, great mountainside. Landscapes out there like they were painted.”
Exploring A Different World
Bucky Covington Learns His Way Around Nashville from Sawyer Brown’s Mark Miller
Country music newcomer Bucky Covington grew up yearning to get to Nashville, but fate dealt a detour. In the end, Covington had been from one American coast to another before seeing the sights in Music City.
“I’d never been on an airplane until American Idol,” says the Rockingham, North Carolina native, who sang his way to a finalist position on the hit TV show that has also made country stars of Josh Gracin, Carrie Underwood, and Kellie Pickler. “I came through Nashville on Interstate 40 once and thought, ‘I wish I could stop,’ but I was on my way to Indiana to see my sister for Christmas.”
It was country group Sawyer Brown lead singer Mark Miller who finally introduced Covington to the city he’d dreamed of visiting. The day after Covington exited American Idol in spring ’06, Miller called him in Los Angeles to invite him to visit Nashville and talk about his future in the music business. “I spent that first weekend with Mark and his family,” Covington recalls backstage prior to his second-ever Opry performance.
Having been hosted in Nashville by the award-winning Miller, Covington says he’s uniquely qualified to turn the tables and play host for opry.com readers, sharing his suggestions for a great Nashville getaway.
“Mark eats Mexican non-stop,” Covington says. So the two have had their share of great tacos, enchiladas, and tamales around town. Covington’s favorite haunt he’s discovered in his year in Nashville, though, is probably Buca Di Beppo “a great Italian restaurant” located in the Cool Springs area south of Nashville.
Covington also likes to fill his motorcycle’s gas tank, then fill up on biscuits, gravy, fried chicken, and more Southern favorites at the Loveless Café off of I-40 before getting on the Natchez Trace for a ride like no other in Middle Tennessee. “That’s a beautiful ride,” he says. “Great countryside, great mountainside. Landscapes out there like they were painted.”
Covington says he can also vouch that visitors to the city could very well see some of their favorite stars off stage, as well as on. “I met Jake Owen the other day at the Tin Roof,” he says not long after having met some of his guitar heroes from Lynard Skynard and 38 Special.
And like any good country artist with a Southern rock heart, Covington says anyone who he’s hosting would have to take in the honky tonks of Lower Broadway downtown. “It’s slam packed full with great bands up and down the street on both sides, and there’s no telling who you’ll run into,” he says. Fans of the newcomer with the number one self-titled album would be wise to keep their eyes open for him in joints like The Stage and Tootsie’s. Like other stars, he’s been known to drop by and jump on stage for a song or two. “That’s always cool.”
- Dan Rogers