NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Featured in dozens of music videos, Santa's Pub has become a Nashville staple and a nationally known dive bar. Owner of Santa's Pub Denzel Irwin has just died at 75. Irwin meant a lot to many including those he gave community.
"I'm all about specifics," said singer Jay Bragg, speaking on the subject of songwriting. "Real descriptors like that is what brings you to the place and time to which you're writing about."
The Nashville music scene is huge and competitive. When Bragg first arrived to the city, he found community in a double wide trailer dive bar called Santa's Pub. The place opened in 2011.
"Walking in that place, there was a plume of smoke coming out of the door!" Bragg laughed. "It's unlike any place else I've been to. Nobody's in a bad mood."
Then Bragg met Santa's Pub owner Irwin, the man everyone calls Santa.
Bragg remembered how Irwin maintained two rules. One was no fighting. The other?
"There was no cussing if you were singing karaoke," he said. "He really built that place as an extension of his personality."
In his weekly Sunday stops at Santa's Pub, Bragg came to discover Irwin's extraordinary kindness.
"Santa was very open and welcoming to misfits and people who don't fit in to the status quo of town," Bragg said. "I think everyone was welcome at Santa's Pub. It was an absolute honor to front Santa's Ice Cold Pickers on him and Angelina's wedding day."
Denzel Irwin's death was announced Sunday. We haven't heard from family on anything else at this time. Bragg said there's such a legacy left in the way Irwin built something so loved in Nashville.
"As things progressed, got a lot of notoriety, like national notoriety, it's one of *the* dive bars in America," Bragg said.
Back on the night of that wedding, Bragg sang a song he wrote called Santa's Pub.
"Santa actually paid for the recording of that song," he said.
Bragg will continue to perform it, a song about a place that means so much to so many.
"It's a very inclusive place where anybody and everybody is welcome as long as you have a good attitude, and, of course, as long as you do not cuss," Bragg said.
I'm so thankful Robb Coles highlighted the Kamer Davis clinic in Hermitage and the hardship that may force its closure. The clinic provides care for patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities and there is no other place like it nearby. You can tell the staff is so passionate about the care they provide. I hope by shining the light on this, the right person can step in and make a difference.
- Carrie Sharp
