The 140-seat club is all dressed up and retains none of the funky aspects of the original place, which included mildewed carpet on the walls. Lower Broadway Avenue is just a few blocks away from Printer’s Alley and that nightlife strip with honky tonks like Tootsie’s and Robert’s Western World was reborn after the 1996 opening of the Bridgestone Arena, home of the NHL’s Nashville Predators.Įven most locals thought Printer’s Alley was extinct-until June of 2015 when Skull’s Rainbow Room quietly reopened. Before my time, country-jazz guitarist Hank Garland (Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline) was the headliner at the nearby Carousel Club. MacPhail had operated a department store in downtown Nashville.Ĭountry saxophone player Boots Randolph ran a club down the alley from Skull’s. On Skull flipped the switch for major league baseball’s first night game at Crosley Field with Cincinnati Reds General Manager Larry MacPhail. I later learned that Vol players gave him the nickname “Skull” after he suffered a fractured skull in an automobile accident. He loved baseball and worked as a batboy for the Nashville Vols minor league team. A few years later I adjourned to Skull’s after the Country Music Association (CMA) awards and had a couple beers with a young Shooter Jennings. We saw burlesque comedian Joey Gerard who had cut his chops in Calumet City, Ill. My friend Angelo Varias, former drummer with John Prine, took me there for the first time. I was fortunate to have met Skull during visits in the late 1980s and 1990s. Skull’s Rainbow Room closed several months after Schulman’s death. Pence told police he knew Schulman carried large wads of money in the bib of his overalls.Ĭaveye got a life sentence while Pence pleaded guilty to facilitating a murder, which carried a prison sentence between 15 and 25 years. Pence was working a carnival at the Tennessee State Fair and Schulman once hired him for part-time help. And in 2001, American drifters James Caveye and Jason Pence were charged of robbing and murdering Schulman. Skull’s friend Willie Nelson appeared on “America’s Most Wanted” in an effort to catch the killer (s). Country singer Tanya Tucker rushed to Schulman’s bedside before he died. The horrific murder shook the Nashville entertainment industry to its soul. Schulman’s throat had been slit and he had been hit over the head with a liquor bottle. His latest “Sweetie” was wandering around the bar. 21, 1998 Schulman was murdered during a robbery inside the club.Ī cigarette vendor found Schulman lying on the floor. During Christmas Skull would dye his poodles red and green Elvis Presley once sent him a poodle and Skull insisted on naming every poodle “Sweetie” or “Sugar.” He was often seen walking his poodles on a rhinestone leash down Printer’s Alley. He liked to wear his faded blue “Hee-Haw” overalls behind his beloved bar. Schulman was known as “The Mayor of Printer’s Alley” and later became a semi-cast member on the “Hee-Haw” television series. He once was locked inside the freezer on the Fourth of July. As a teenager he froze baseballs in the meat freezer at the nearby Swift & Company to deaden the rubber inside. Schulman was born in North Nashville, several blocks from the since-razed Sulphur Dell ballpark. In 1963 Jimi Hendrix played with bassist Billy Cox at the Jolly Roger, next door to Skull’s. Printer’s Alley nightclubs populated the Bourbon Street- like strip and entertainers on the circuit included Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams and the Supremes. Andy Griffith was a house comedian at Skull’s and the club featured exotic dancers in the Bible Belt hometown of Bettie Page. The narrow two block jaunt stretches from Union Street to Church Street. The recent reopening of the historic Skull’s Rainbow Room in the once seedy downtown Printer’s Alley is major cultural news that incorporates country music, murder, speakeasies, burlesque and a carnival worker.ĭavid “Skull” Schulman opened his nightclub in 1948 in Printer’s Alley, once the ribald shadow of Nashville’s publishing and printing businesses. “The city is growing so fast developers are tearing down historic buildings as quickly as they can and they’re replacing them with condos and office towers. “The preservation of historic landmarks in Nashville in crisis mode,” said Robbie Jones, past president and board member of Historic Nashville, Inc. Things in the rear view mirror are larger than they appear. Former Mayor Karl Dean was so concerned about the city’s outdated public transportation system he tried to take buses to work–but locals stopped to pick him up in their cars. NASHVILLE, Tn.–The joke about Nashville’s rapid growth is how the city skyline consists of tower cranes. Printer’s Alley, 1960s (Courtesy of Skull’s)
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