For AARP The Magazine’s cover, renowned celebrity photographer Jim Wright proposed shooting country music’s favorite couple, Vince Gill and Amy Grant, at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville. The gritty honky-tonk on Lower Broadway in downtown Music City dates back to the 1950s, when big-name performers like Jim Reeves and Faron Young would trek across the alley from the Mother Church of Country Music — Ryman Auditorium, then home of the Grand Ole Opry — between sets for a cold one at Tootsie’s. There, aspiring songwriters such as Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson would pitch them the tunes they’d written on tabletops and bar napkins. … Back to Article