- [Joe] This time on Tennessee Crossroads we go to Summertown where Gretchen Bates discovers how Texas barbecue has invaded Tennessee.

Then to Murfreesboro with Rob Wilds to discover the living history of Oaklands mansion.

Then to Pegram with Ken Wilshire to explore a mission of Legacy Woodworks.

And we'll wind up in middle Tennessee with Nancy Hoddinott at the Nashville Jazz Workshop.

That's the billboard for this week's Tennessee Crossroads.

I'm Joe Elmore, glad to have you.

(jazzy music) Tennessee and Texas have a lot in common.

Music of course, football, and their own styles of barbecue.

In Tennessee of course, it's mostly pork.

Down in Texas, well, that's where's the beef?

Gretchen Bates met a guy who was a former Texan now turning Tennesseeans on to a taste that's as big as his home state.

- [Gretchen] The Crossroads crew has been known to indulge in barbecue on occasion.

And we expected to find more of the same at a little place outside Summertown.

But what we found was Texas right here in Lawrence County with a capital T and that rhymes with B and that stands for brisket.

- That's right, I know what I like to eat and I just assumed everybody else would like the same thing.

- [Gretchen] Meet Franklin Shaffer.

If you're a barbecue beef bon vivant, this transplanted Texan won't steer you wrong.

(cow moos) - I put this thing together about six or seven years ago to kind of fulfill a childhood dream to have barbecue and try to match the barbecue that I've eaten in Texas.

And kind of put it out here on the edge of the farm.

We're here basically on the edge of about 1,000 acres.

I didn't want to be in the middle of anything.

Out in Texas we kind of pride ourselves on driving the long distances to find good food, so that's kind of what I had in mind.

- [Gretchen] A lot of other folks must have that same thing in mind, because they travel to Shaffer Farms from near and far.

- [Franklin] They come from all over, it's unbelievable.

We get a lot of support from Franklin, Nashville, Spring Hill, Athens, Alabama, Birmingham and different places.

It's growing.

- [Gretchen] The reason they're beating a path to Franklin's door is simple.

Around these parts, you never have to ask, where's the beef?

- With brisket or pork?

- With the brisket.

- Brisket or pork?

- I don't know, which is the best?

- Brisket is good.

- I knew the flavor would go over.

Anybody that's never been here before, we'll give you a free sample of ribs, brisket, chicken, anything you'd want.

And when we do that, they always seem to pick the brisket.

- [David] The Texas brisket's good.

The girls do a terrific job with us on that.

- [Gretchen] Store manger David Williams has seen plenty of pulled pork purists become brisket believers.

- I've had people come in didn't like brisket and I tell 'em, well you better get you a sample.

And they usually come out, they either sit down in here and eat a plate, or they get it and leave and they say, you a better salesman than you are a meat cutter, so you know, it's fun to watch people's reactions.

We use choice beef, it's the only thing that we use.

The smoke that we use and the brisket that we have is really unique.

I remember years ago nobody wanted the brisket because you had to cook it and most ladies didn't want to take that much time to do it.

- [Gretchen] Well this is not most ladies.

This is Sue.

Sue smokes barbecue better than most cooks do.

- And when we first got started I did all the cooking.

Did it all, and then we were blessed enough to have Sue to come help us and several of the others and she picked it up real quick.

Had a lot of experience cooking and she does just as good a job as I could do.

She's got it down to a science.

The cobbler she makes, the banana pudding she makes, everything's made from scratch and it's fantastic.

(chopping) - [Sue] That's the good stuff.

- [Gretchen] It is good stuff, but there's so much good stuff at Shaffer Farms that deciding where to start is the hardest part.

- [Franklin] We make 19 different kinds of sausages here.

Chicken thigh, chicken wing, pulled pork, and then we have the St. Louis ribs that we do.

We have bourbon pecan brittle.

We make most of our pies.

We try to make sure we get plenty on your plate.

- It is definitely a monster.

- We don't want you leaving hungry saying well, I didn't get my money's worth.

If you don't get your money's worth you come tell us, we'll fix that.

- [Gretchen] You'll get your money's worth, and sometimes more than you bargained for.

- Would you like hot pepper on the side?

Would you like a hot pepper on the side?

- [Gretchen] Hot pepper on the side means hot pepper on the side.

- It's all the real thing around here.

None of that artificial stuff.

- [Gretchen] There's nothing artificial about the atmosphere either.

- [Franklin] These tables were made for me by the Amish.

The guy that made 'em makes buggy wheels and he just kind of branched out and made these tables for us, so I thought they fit in real good with our decor.

- [Gretchen] A decor with plenty of UT orange.

You'll find a lot of UT memorabilia in Tennessee restaurants, especially around Knoxville.

But here at Shaffers, they're a little less go Vols and a lot more hook 'em horns.

(fight song plays) - I did go to UT, went to law school at the University of Texas.

Practiced law for a while.

Then when I came up here to stay, I just started dreaming about a barbecuing place and meat market.

- [Gretchen] That's right, for those looking for really fresh barbecue, the meat market is the place for you.

- Of course our butcher shop is just as big a part of this as our barbecue.

The fresh meat, the fresh cuts.

Cutting just exactly the way people would want their steaks cut and so forth.

- [Gretchen] And if you want that Shaffer taste at home, they have all the fixins.

- We mix most of our rubs and all of our sauces, but the original sauce is our sweet sauce.

It's hard to describe, you just have to taste it to tell what it is.

- [Gretchen] I see them pouring them out of a big Jack Daniels bottles.

Is that one of the ingredients?

- That's one of the ingredients, yeah.

- [Gretchen] Shaffer Farms, putting a Tennessee twist on a tasty Texas treat.

- Thanks Gretchen.

Oaklands is an elegant mansion in Murfreesboro that was caught in the crossfire of the Civil War.

In a way, it reflects the prosperity of the old South as well as the hardships of the war and thereafter.

Rob Wilds takes us to this landmark to share some of its living history.

- [Tour Guide] One third of the furniture in the house is original to the Maney family.

If not original to the Maneys, it is original to the middle Tennessee Murfreesboro area.

- The house, which is the really big expansion that you see in the front when you come to the front driveway.

It's actually really easy to tell when you're in this area because if you look up, the ceilings are 15 feet high in this area of the house and this is the only area that has 15 foot ceilings.

- And that's because they were trying to display their wealth to their guests.

- [Rob] These young people are getting a look around the inside of one of middle Tennessee's most historic homes.

The Oaklands in Murfreesboro.

- This bed is original to the Maney family as well, with the acorns on top.

- [Rob] Which, according to executive director James Manning, was settled by the Maney family almost two centuries ago.

- They moved here about 1818.

They were here by the 1820 census and they started out with a two-room cabin and it's still behind us.

They just built around it and this is how their plantation grew and prospered through the years, and eventually, they had a 1,500 acre plantation and they gave it to their eldest son and their daughter-in-law who just happened to be the daughter of governor Newton Cannon of Tennessee.

The first Whig governor of the state.

And they built the grand Italianite addition onto the front of the mansion.

The house is completely restored to the 1860s when the Maneys lived here when the plantation was at its heighth.

And so you'll see it furnished as they would have lived in it in the 1860s with the gentlemens' parlor and the ladies' parlor and two dining rooms and all the grand features of the Italianite architecture and the lifestyle of the Victorian planar family.

- Lots of great history preserved here inside the Oaklands mansion, but once in a while, history comes to life outside the Oaklands mansion.

- Take ready, aim, fire!

- [Rob] Like being back in time, reenactors and craftspeople and volunteers are here to give school kids from all around a taste of what life might have been like here in 1860.

Education director Mary Beth Nevills says it's a hands-on kind of experience.

- Our focus is hands-on chores of the 1800s.

We want to be as hands-on as possible so the kids get to feel, smell, see.

They're churning butter on a real butter churn, and kneading biscuit dough so they can get their hands in the dough.

They make a candle to take home, so they're dipping their string in the wax and getting a feel for what's involved in the chores, everyday chores of the 1800s.

We have soldiers encamped and they're talking about the chores that the soldiers would go through.

- Go!

- [Mary Beth] We've got games.

Obviously the kids would have had down time in the 1800s.

So, period games and some dress up so they can get a feel for the time period.

- [Rob] The time period was 1860 and there was a war on.

- Fire!

(rifles crack) - Remember how to do that?

- [Rob] And crack troops are being trained.

I never knew drill sergeants were so friendly.

Well, everybody is friendly here at the Oaklands.

Not only the soldiers, but the civilian reenactors.

Even if they're giving the kids here a lesson on how hard life could be.

- What do you think you would have to do as boys as you get older?

- You were supposed to work.

- Okay, what kind of work?

- Farming and all that stuff.

- [Rob] It was hard work keeping the home fires burning says civilian reenactor Sarah Hoover.

- The soldiers went off, we still had to survive at home.

We had to tend to life without the men, still at home.

So if I was at home on a farm I still had to figure out how to keep my mom and my brothers and sisters fed.

Civilians were the continuation of life beyond the battle.

- [Rob] Seeing and touching are perfect ways to learn, according to Cynthia Duncan, who brought her kindergarteners from Hickory Creek Elementary in McMinnville here to the Oaklands.

- It's great for kindergarten age children because they like to see and do and touch and feel and they're tactile learners, so this works out good for them.

- [Rob] And while they're here having a good time, they're learning about how people lived and who lived here, including those held in slavery.

They are not forgotten.

There's an exhibit about that.

And, the natural wonders at the Oaklands are not forgotten either, although executive director James Manning says few people here are aware of them.

- A lot of people come to Oaklands and they never realize that they're just around the corner from a spring that runs strong, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and hasn't stopped since prehistoric times.

We also have a tree on the grounds which is on the national register of historic trees and it's over 250 years old.

- [Rob] And from which the Oaklands gets its name.

Hard to imagine something 250 years old, especially when you're only five or six yourself.

And while the lessons of this day may not sink in until these kids are a bit older, right now they can agree on one thing.

- [Man] Y'all having any fun?

- [All] Yes!

- [Rob] Absolutely, enjoying and learning at the living history field day at the Oaklands in Murfreesboro.

- Now if you'd like a real hands-on sample of what life was like then, you can go to their event called Washing, Churning, and Learning coming up May 7th and 8th.

You've all heard the expression idle hands are the devil's workshop?

Well recently, Ken Wilshire met a guy in Pegram who created his own workshop.

See, the idea is restoring old wood while also restoring people's lives.

- One, two, three.

- [Ken] He knew at an early age he was called to preach the Gospel and touch the hearts of those in need of some spiritual uplifting.

As a youngster, Blake Bergstrom witnessed his dad ministering to prison inmates in a very unique way.

- My dad's an old carpenter remodeling contractor, construction guy, and so he was always teaching these guys how to do trim carpentry and that sort of thing.

And so I had the privilege to be alongside of him.

- [Ken] Blake learned firsthand how lives could be changed when they were filled with purpose, hope, and love.

He also found he didn't need a pulpit and pews for preaching, prayer, and what Blake calls, loving on people.

- I want to be like the pastors that I know and so I had this heart to sort of be raw and just love on people that really weren't real lovable and really maybe weren't given a chance, and so that's sort of what my ministry has been like, is like I've had this chance to be able to love on a lot of people that are sort of forgotten about, marginalized, and treating like they're not given dignity and self worth.

- [Ken] Blake went to Bible college, but soon found that traditional and even contemporary theology were just not for him.

- This is just an unconventional way to do church.

I still get a chance to go and preach and help serve in churches, but man, the church that I have day to day here, it is definitely a ministry and it's hard work.

I'm in the trenches with guys and this is just a different way to sort of wage war against darkness.

And try to bring light, hope, joy, and love to a world that's desperate for it.

- [Ken] It's called Legacy Woodworks in Pegram, Tennessee.

They make handcrafted furniture out of reclaimed materials like old barns and sheds they find around the area with an occasional visit to a scapyard or two.

But it's more than recycling wood going on here.

- That's why we call it Legacy.

We reclaim and repurpose materials so we can reclaim and repurpose people.

That's our passion, that's what keeps us going every day.

That's why we do what we do and that's the legacy that we create.

So it starts with guys here that are addicts and homeless.

There's not a place for a convict or somebody that has an addiction or a record to be able to find jobs, and so for us, we're like hey, do you have any carpentry skills?

Even if they don't, a lot of times we'll just have 'em take out nails and sand wood.

I've had a lot of guys that like say man I've heard of horse therapy.

I've heard of like, you know, I've gone to all kinds of counseling and is this some sort of therapy?

I'm like, yeah, it is, it is.

- [Ken] Blake says every piece of furniture is custom made and this is the way they want it here at Legacy.

- We make every kind of dining table, console table, end table, coffee table, all kinds of tables.

We make every size of bed and headboard.

We make every kind of bar you can imagine.

We just decided we would rather every day wake up and create awesome.

We want every piece to be unique and sort of like we create it together with the client.

It just kind of keeps it really raw and fun that way.

- So, you're saying recycle wood from all over the state.

Where did this come from and?

- Yeah, so this is regular two by fours and two by sixes that came out of a barn that was actually the joists that went across the beam that held the structure up.

So, a lot of the flooring was held together by this barn, and this particular barn came out of a town called Shelbyville, Tennessee.

- [Ken] Life hasn't been so good for many of these fellas, but Nathan happened to be a member of Blake's church in Nashville when his faith in Legacy's mission was confirmed.

- When I would see the Legacy stuff online, I always thought like oh, that'd be really cool to do that, like to work in a shop doing that.

And didn't really think I was going to, so when I ended up coming out here and just being hired on the spot, that was really awesome.

It's been a good environment to just learn a little bit and just fellowship with a lot of great guys.

The fact that you can come to work and know that your work is serving a purpose.

- [Blake] You get to see somebody use their hands and create something.

It really kind of helps restore guys.

So men over the past three years, there's probably been maybe 25 or 30 guys that have come through here, that'll stay three to six weeks and start to be repurposed.

- [Ken] Blake's wife and daughters help in the ministry of Legacy Woodworks as well.

Not only around the shop, but around the world.

- [Blake] But we also have this heart to put trade schools and orphanages around the world.

So we did that this last summer.

My whole family went with me.

My girls, all were a part of it.

So we went and put that in Africa and now it's amazing, 'cause those kids are making stuff in Africa and they're sending me like all these pictures.

It's so cool to get to give a chance to people that weren't really given one, you know?

This year, we're gonna actually do that in the Dominican Republic.

That's sort of the legacy.

That's what we really want to be about.

It's not just furniture and making money.

It's about really helping people.

- [Ken] Well Blake's hoping to help many more as word spreads about Legacy Woodworks, it's truly a testament to his father's ministry and to Blake's faith in his own mission of salvation.

- Love is so contagious, and when you give it away, just freely, and don't get to where you're jockeying your pride, worried about the company and business and how, you know, how are we gonna grow?

It's just, serve people.

Give hope every day.

And the rest takes care of itself.

- Finally, where would you go to listen to some great jazz?

New York, Chicago, New Orleans?

Well, don't count out Nashville.

That's right, in the heart of the country music capital is the Nashville Jazz Workshop.

And as Nancy Hoddinott discovered, it's become a center of talent, education, and well of course, all that jazz.

(jazz music) - [Nancy] Today we're just north of downtown Nashville at the revitalized Neuhoff Complex in east German Town.

Here you can discover the Nashville Jazz Workshop, an arts organization that offers a whole new perspective on the world class talent that you can find in Music City.

(jazz music) Nashville Jazz Workshop began under the leadership of upright bassist Roger Spencer and jazz pianist, Lori Mechem.

For over a decade, Roger and Lori have been making an enormous contribution to the performance, education, and preservation of jazz heritage in Tennessee.

- The Nashville Jazz Institute started with two classes and 11 people.

People from Belmont University and other folks that saw the ad in the back of the Scene.

I had no idea that this school would grow as much as it has.

We have classes ranging from vocal classes, ensemble classes, improvisation classes.

We have classes for listeners that just are, they love to come to the jazz workshop, but they're not a musician.

So, it's for everyone.

Anybody can come here.

- What did you hear?

- [Lori] Students come here because they, first of all, they want an education.

They come here 'cause they're curious.

They come here to see live performances.

They come to volunteer, they come to donate, they come to listen, they come to just be a part of this family.

- [Nancy] Another musician who has been involved here for years is Larry Seeman.

After playing guitar in the jazz institute's very first class, Larry helped organize the Nashville Jazz Workshop into the non-profit organization that it is today.

He does everything from grant writing to community outreach.

- We've had several outreach programs to engage younger audiences One was a delightful partnership that we did with the Nashville Public Library who has a world famous, world class puppet troupe.

We partnered with them to produce a puppet show called Ellingtown, which is based on the music of Duke Ellington.

So, we see that as a chance to reach young audiences very early before their tastes have crystallized and show them how amazing and fun jazz can be.

- I love to listen to music, don't you?

- [Larry] The other kinds of outreach that we do to young audiences involves high school students, and this is a more recent program.

We're starting a summer jazz camp.

And what that does is give high school players who've studied a bit of jazz, because most high schools have jazz bands, but they're not able to teach improvisation at the level that students can learn at a place like this, so we're able to give them some extra dimension to their jazz training that they can't get in their own high school.

(jazz music) - In addition to classes, educational workshops, and community outreach, Nashville Jazz Workshop offers some incredible live music that you can come to see at a place called the Jazz Cave.

- The Jazz Cave is a vital lifeline for me to have the performance possibilities available here.

Nashville is Music City, but there are not many venues in which I can play this kind of music.

- So try it right there at the bridge.

One, two, three.

k Do you remember k - [Roger] We built the place as a school first, and I've always felt that if people are going to learn to play in an ensembles, one of the best things you can do is at the end of the six week session, put 'em on a stage and make them perform for the public.

I think that's a real important part of their education.

So we built this venue, and when the people who are teaching with us and the pros in town saw this, they said, why aren't we playing here?

k Where somebody waits for me k - [Nancy] Through jazz education and live performances like these, Lori, Roger, and Larry have made huge contributions to the cultural arts community in Tennessee.

- I believe that we have worked very hard to preserve the history and the foundation of jazz in Nashville.

- I think there's a deeper relationship between jazz and Tennessee than a lot of people realize.

When you start defining jazz, you're in trouble anyway.

When I do my jazz appreciation classes that's the first thing I do is I make everybody in the class tell me what they think jazz is.

And usually what it comes down to is the essence of jazz is some form of improvisation.

And I think, you know, the tradition of bluegrass and country in Tennessee, improvisationally, is great cross-pollinization.

When I grew up in Indiana, in high school, I played for years with a great banjo player named Louie Polkjoy and we had a bluegrass group and we were the house band at the bean blossom festival for two summers in a row.

It's mountain jazz.

So I think there's the tie in.

Improvisation is universal.

- When you wanna know something about ballet you call the ballet.

When you wanna know something about opera, you probably call up the opera.

Well, now when you wanna know something about jazz, you call up the Jazz Workshop, and it's just understood in the arts community that jazz is part of that mix.

And I think that helps the entire cultural landscape in Tennessee.

- [Nancy] So don't be surprised.

That is world class jazz that you hear emanating from an old meat packing plant in the shadows of downtown Nashville.

It's an unexpected treasure in Music City.

The Nashville Jazz Workshop.

(jazz music) (cheering) - Well, the time has come for us to pack it up and leave, that is, after I remind you of our website, tennesseecrossroads.org, place where you can catch up on stories you might have missed or those you want to see again.

And, you want to see the ones we got for you next week.

We're gonna take you to downtown Nashville to the state capital and explore its unusual history.

Then, to Dunlap where Rob Wilds saddles up for a dude ranch experience, to McKenzie with Ken Wilshire to profile artist Tuva Stephens.

Then to Memphis with Tammi Arender to a museum all dedicated to old King Cotton.

It'll be a good one, our next Tennessee Crossroads, please join us.

(jazzy music)