Since our last post, the pair of cars and their journalist drivers have completed a 1,500 miles leg from El Paso in Texas across the state to San Marcos, then Dallas, and on to Nashville in Tennessee.
August 24
At 6am this morning the sun was just beginning to creep over the horizon. The stars were fading and the grey dawn slowly started to lighten. Sipping tea from thick china mugs we watched the world wake up, before piling into the cars and setting off for the long drive to San Marcos.
And despite the early hour, it was stunningly beautiful. We passed through proper cowboy movie terrain – rough peaks that plunged into low valleys where, if you squinted, you could almost make out the Lone Ranger silhouetted against the skyline on his trusty steed, Silver. The road twisted and turned, carving its way through the hills, until we emerged onto a flat plain which was bathed in a milky glow that crept to the distant hazy mountains. Overhead an eagle soared lazily and we felt like the only people in the world.
Of course, this being Texas, the road was not entirely romantic. Every so often we would come across a squashed animal of some kind: a coyote, a racoon, a skunk. And we’d pull through yet more one-horse towns with their desiccated buildings.
But the team is really starting to bond. We’ve driven just under a thousand miles, the cars are well driven in and we’ve developed a camaraderie that means stopping to relieve ourselves on the side of the road is no longer an embarrassment. Even when the walkie-talkies break down we can communicate with our newly developed code: flash your lights if you want to stop, drive by waving an obscene gesture if you’re bored.
We’re also starting to pick up some good Americanisms: high fiving each other when we do a story in one take, drinking copious amounts of Gatorade and referring to petrol as ‘gas’.
Of course, we’ve still got two months to go. But at the rate we’re going, by the end of this tour we’ll feel like a family.
And we made it to San Marcos in plenty of time for a man called Scott Wade to do his thing.
The urge to draw on a dirty car is almost irresistible. But most of us are content to scrawl ‘wash me’ and leave it at that. Not Scott Wade. This self-proclaimed ‘dirty car artist’ actually draws on cars professionally (www.dirtycarart.com).
Based in San Marcos, Texas, Wade – who is primarily a graphic artist – started doodling on cars some seven years ago when he lived “on a long dirt road where you just couldn’t wash your car every day”. What started as doodling turned into something of an obsession, and now Wade can spend hours at a time drawing the most intricate of artworks in dust.
We pitched up with the Fiestas to see what he could do. And, having dirtied the car sufficiently with a special blend of thick dust stuck on with oil, he got to work, scratching an outline with a whittled stick then filling in more detail with fine sable brushes.
Just over an hour later, one car was adorned with the most intricate drawing of two Texas longhorn cattle, staring mournfully out at the world. It was fabulous.
Alas, as he was finishing, the rain started to fall, and by the time the drawing was done it was chucking it down. Upsetting? For us, perhaps, but not for Wade. “The impermanence of this art form is something that really turns me on,” he says. “There’s something liberating about it because you’re free to just have fun with it. It’s not going to last – nothing lasts – even the greatest works of art are crumbling.”
And with that, this latest work of art is driven into the rain and trickles slowly away.
August 25
Think of American football and the images that generally spring to mind are jocks, cheerleaders and lots of primal roars. But artwork, mosaics on the walls and elegant entertainment areas? Not so much.
At the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, which opened last year and has already hosted Chelsea FC, U2 and, of course, a few football games, you get both jocks and mosaics. As Phil Whitfield, the self-proclaimed ‘stadium ambassador’ and our tour guide today put it, “we wanted something more than a football stadium.”
So as well as a state of the art Astroturf pitch, a retractable roof that closes in 12 minutes when it rains and a viewing screen hanging above the pitch that is seven storeys high, there’s also 15 pieces of original art dotted around, swanky chandeliers in the shape of footballs and, of course, those mosaic walls (silver studs embedded in concrete, since you ask).
We were pretty wowed. Even more so when we had a look round the all-new field-level suites, a series of dugout-style party rooms where those rich enough to rent them can watch the game at eye level. For those not earning that sort of money, you can buy a standing room only ticket for a mere $29. And, as Whitfield puts it, “there are no bad seats”. Even the Ford Fiesta got a good view – we drove it into the stadium to take a few photos.
The experience at the Dallas Cowboys stadium highlights the two very different, often contradictory aspects to the idea of the cowboy. On the one hand, American football captures that gung-ho, star-spangled machismo intrinsic to the cowboy archetype – the square-shouldered tough guy with the pretty blonde cheering from the sidelines. But the sensitivity to art evident in the mosaics and aesthetic detailing of the new stadium reveals a more cerebral and contemplative quality, a more complex personality beneath the hard-boiled exterior.
It says something of the history of this vast state. In the frontier days of the 18th and 19th Century, Texas was a brutal, often lawless place, and the landscape itself exacted a price, demanding of its settlers a rugged determination, a passion and perseverance to handle its inherent wildness – those that could were deemed to possess a the legendary ‘true grit’ that no all-American hero can do without. Yet despite its forbidding qualities, the Texas landscape is also eerily beautiful, with undulating hills, babbling brooks and pretty stone houses hidden in unexpected places.
We’re nearly at the end of our tour through the state and I can truly say it’s been an extremely rich and eye-opening experience. You can certainly see why Texans are so proud of where they come from.
Today we visited two very different types of cowboy. The first was a punked-up stereotype version of what it is to be tough. Big shoulders, man-wrestling, and a pretty blonde cheering from the sidelines. The second was an infinitely more thoughtful version. Quiet, cultured with a deep appreciation for the land.
The two cowboys encapsulate the contradictions of Texas. On the one hand it’s all rugged hills, hearty ranchers, and straight talking. On the other it is softer and strangely beautiful – this is the Texas of rolling slopes and pretty stone houses tucked in to the corners. We’re nearly at the end of our tour through the state and it has been an eye-opening experience. There is more to Texas than first meets the eye. Beneath it’s tough exterior is beautiful country which is full of a strange, wild passion. You can see why Texans are so proud of where they come from.
What makes a real cowboy? Well first you need to be called one by someone else. At least that’s what Red Steagall, one of the most renowned “cowboy poet laureates” around, reckons. And he doesn’t think he is one. “I don’t have the skills of a real working outdoor cowboy,” he says. “I can ride and I can rope, but I don’t work the land like they do.”
He looked pretty authentic to us, however. We visited Steagall at his ranch just outside Fort Worth where he keeps a couple of Texas Long Horned Cattle, several quarter horses and a pack of friendly dogs. He showed us around and explained to us what attracts him to this simple yet profound way of life – the connection with the land, the skills honed over generations and the wildness of it all.
Steagall’s career as a country singer and poet spans several decades and kicked off when Ray Charles recorded one of his first songs. His walls are plastered in photographs of him with famous faces, from George Bush to Prince Charles.
But despite his starry connections, Steagall is nevertheless the quintessential cowboy gentleman. He has a neatly trimmed white beard, surprisingly dainty feet (clad of course in cowboy boots), a softly spoken Southern drawl and impeccable manners. He gamely joined in with everything we ask him to do, posing in the Fiesta for photos, telling us all about the original chuck wagon he owns and introducing us to his cattle. He also gave us a rendition of one of his poems, an incredibly moving story of the legacy of three generations of cowboy ranchers. It was quite beautiful.
We were all sad when we had to leave. We felt that we had seen a different, softer side to the traditional Texan brandishing his guns and talking tough. This was about a deep appreciation of the land and preserving the age-old skills of the cowboy, all told in a poet’s voice. It was fantastic.
August 26
What makes Nashville the heart of country music? After all, this is where all the greats have kicked off their careers, from Tammy Wynette to Eddie Arnolds.
The answer is a radio programme – the be specific, the Grand Ole Opry, which began broadcasting in 1925 and is today the longest-running radio show in the history of radio. The show, known as “the home of country music” is broadcast from Nashville, and put this Tennessee town on the map, launching not only artists, but sponsors and products.
As a result, Nashville – which the Ford Fiesta World Tour 2010 rolled into today – has become the spiritual home of the genre. But Nashville produces more than just country. A lot of rock and roll, most of the Christian contemporary music coming out of the US and even some rap are also recorded here. But it is country for which it will always be known, whether the classis artists such as Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton, or more modern performers such as Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood.
One thing’s for sure, however – America loves country. It’s fully made the crossover to the popular charts and now it sells, every week, for 52 weeks of the year. After visiting today, we’re even getting converted. Take it away, boys...
What does the Ford Fiesta World Tour have in common with Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison? Not much, you might have thought – except all three have recorded in the historic RCA Studio B in Nashville – which is what we did today.
We turned up at Studio B after lunch, and 40 minutes later we had a record – yours truly singing a rather deep-voiced version of Elvis’s Amazing Grace. And actually, it sounds pretty good – once they’d mixed in the lush backing track, that is.
It was a great experience. The studio, with its slightly peeling paint and air of faded glamour was where Elvis recorded for 13 years, including all his Grammy Award-winning songs. During the period 1957 to 1977 over 35,000 songs were recorded there, over 1,000 of which became top 10 American hits, which made the studio arguably the most successful studio in the world during that 20-year stretch. Although it was out of action for a while, in 1996 Studio B re-opened as a recording premises, and since then it has hosted the likes of Cliff Richard, Harry Connick Jr and Elvis Costelloe.
“It’s a pretty amazing place,” said Keith Ryan, national tourism sales manager for both the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and the historic RAC Studio B, who showed us round and got us recording.
We had to agree. And we reckon our CD is pretty Grammy Award-winning too.
