Pollen, pollutants make Nashville allergy city for singers
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It sits in a moist, green bowl where pollens and pollutants get trapped in the air and give allergy sufferers fits.
Spring and fall are the worst — so bad that some artists have to delay their recording sessions.
“They can’t get the tone,” said Dr. Gaelyn Garrett, medical director of the Vanderbilt Voice Center. “I’ve had a couple of singers recently who have just postponed their studio work for a few weeks until they feel it’s their better stuff.”
The clinic, part of Vanderbilt University, treats singers of all types, from the tenor in the church choir to country superstar Willie Nelson. The biggest problem for most with allergies is nasal drainage.
“It affects the resonance and the feedback they get when they’re singing,” Garrett said. “A lot of the professional singers will wear monitors. They rely on the feedback of their voice to help them find the notes and help with loudness. When they’re congested in the nasal passages, it makes it very difficult.”
Country singer Bryan White is reminded how difficult every time he hears his 1996 hit “I’m Not Supposed to Love You Anymore” on the radio.
“To this day it still bothers me because I can hear it in my nose. I can hear a little bit of the nasally thing,” White said. “I remember that time was very difficult for me. It didn’t affect the fate of the record, but I can still hear it.”
White, an Oklahoma native who says he’s allergic to just about everything, had trouble before he moved to Nashville but not so much with the stuffiness.
Things got so bad when he was recording his third album, “The Right Place,” that he had to go to California’s dry climate to finish it.
“We would have a session set up to do vocals and my nose would really close up and we’d have to stop and reschedule,” White said. “We were wasting money. I had to go somewhere else where I could breathe.”
Nashville sits in a gently rolling basin surrounded by the western and eastern Highland Rim. Like much of the Southeast, it typically ranks among the worst in the country for allergies and air pollution. The area has a long growing season and abundant rainfall and is particularly bad for ragweed and hickory/pecan pollen.
“We have tons of trees and a lot of other kinds of pollen, so the pollen count is very high here,” said Dr. John Overholt, an allergist in Franklin, about 20 miles south of Nashville.
A leading recording center, Nashville is home to thousands of professional musicians, singers, producers and engineers. Country artists alone sold 77.9 million albums last year — nearly 12 percent of all album sales in all genres, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Over the years, everyone from Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash to Bob Dylan and Uncle Kracker have recorded here.
Overholt estimates that about 50 of his patients are singers, and they all complain of the same things: hoarseness, poor tone and limited vocal range.
“They feel they have a lot of trouble hitting the top end,” he said.
Bluegrass singer Melonie Cannon had a scare last September when she became hoarse and went to a specialist.
“He said, ‘Let me tell you something. You are in the wrong profession and in the wrong town with your allergies,'” said the 32-year-old Cannon, who released her self-titled debut album last year.
She was ordered not to sing or speak for three weeks.
“It was right before the IBMA conference (International Bluegrass Music Association) and I had to cancel the whole week. I was supposed to perform at a big showcase and I had several smaller things I was doing for people. I sat home and cried for a week. I was heartbroken. It was my time to step out and be in front of these people and show them what I could do and I couldn’t sing.”
Fortunately for Cannon, sinus surgery and medication did the trick. Now, she says, her throat “feels like silk.”
“This is my life and all I want to ever do,” said Cannon, whose father, Buddy Cannon, is a well-known Nashville record producer. “It’s a little scary that this can happen to me.”
White’s also gotten a handle on his allergies. While they still bother him and occasionally mess with his recording schedule, he says they don’t seem as bad as they used to and are controllable with medication.
“I considered moving a few years ago, but gradually I’ve noticed an improvement,” he said. “You feel secure about being here because you’re able to stay in the trenches with everybody. I would think you feel a little disconnected if you’re not close by.”