On Broadway - Blake Hall & Buttermilk Pie

On Broadway is a web series spotlighting the talented musicians of Broadway in downtown Nashville. Like food, music evokes memories and connects us all. 

I love pie.  Warm, cold, two-crust, sweet, tangy, open face, creamy, fruity, boozy, lattice-top—doesn’t matter; I want them all. Just slide me over a slice and don’t be stingy.

So, I was thrilled to find out that one of the hardest working dudes on Broadway shared my sentiment. His name is Blake Hall and this dude is everywhere. A rock and roll/ punk rock hybrid, he has an impossibly cool voice with just the right amount of smoke and rasp and a style to match, on top of being a ridiculous sweetheart. And it turns out he stares at pie with almost the same adoration as his guitar.

“[My great grandmother made] lemon icebox and buttermilk pie. But the buttermilk… that was the ultimate dessert for me,” Blake recalls. I figured it was akin to chess pie, so I consulted good ol’ Wikipedia, which confirmed my suspicions. Buttermilk pie (see our delicious version here) is a custard pie, originally from the UK, but now a traditional pie of the southern US. Similar to and sometimes confused with chess pie, it does not include cornmeal and its basic filling consists of sugar, butter, eggs, buttermilk and wheat flour. “Yeah,” says Blake, “with a hint of make-you-wanna-slap-your-momma. It’s that good. They all were - she always made two or three different pies.” I figured his great granny busted out multiple pies when it was a holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but it turns out this was an all-the-time thing.

Me: “No matter what the occasion, even if it was just a simple visit, she made two or three pies?”

Blake: “Thank the lord.”

Like the pie, Blake is also a southern staple. Though originally from Gainesville, Florida, he is very familiar with Nashville. He first moved here when he was just five years old, as his songwriter father was working on getting a publishing deal. It was at the same age that a tenacious Blake firmly decided he was going to be a professional musician. “My parents bought me a travel guitar when I was two. When I was five, I went to them and [said], ‘ok, I’ve got this guitar, how can I learn to play it? I want to be a musician, so let’s get started.’ My father printed me out some scales and gave me some records to listen to. Albums from The Allman Brothers [and the like]. He told me if I listened to those, then I’d be in good shape.”

Though he had to move back to Florida when he was about eleven, Blake returned to Nashville- seemingly for good- in 2009, and was met with a bit of a struggle to get started. “I was working on a record with an original progressive rock band and they were dragging their feet. I didn’t know what to do to pick up the pace on recording with them, so I was trying to do all kinds of day jobs while playing on the weekends. Two years of that went by, spinning my wheels.” Safe to say, Blake was stuck. That is until his buddy suggested he come downtown to meet people and sit in on some gigs, opening the door to Broadway. In addition, Blake played in an Eagles tribute band called Seven Bridges for over five years, traveling a lot. “Then my beautiful baby boy was born, and I wanted to be home more often. It was important to me.” Fortunately, High Wire Productions offered him steady work downtown and got him off the road with the added bonus of stepping into the roll of front man, giving Blake the ability to promote his own music. (I’d like to interject here and suggest you download This Fire on your streaming platform of choice although, truthfully, I really prefer hearing him sing it live.)

Nowadays, when he’s not burning the candle at both ends on Broadway, Blake is sporadically on the road with Kyle Cook of Matchbox 20. None of the constant craziness fazes him, though. “It’s been a huge blessing to stay busy and play music… and every now and then get a taste of the road.”

You can catch Blake at a number of bars downtown including Tequila Cowboy, Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Bar, Luke Bryan’s 32 Bridge, and FGL House, usually with a band and rocking the house. As for Blake’s great grandmother- she’s still kickin’. She’s 95 and lives in Alabama. “It’s incredible,” he says. “Must be all the buttermilk pie.”

Follow Blake @blakehallnashville