It’s a town full of stories with a century’s worth of wild and wonderful characters. And nowhere are these stories told better, in more accurate and vivid detail than at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Founded in 1967 on Nashville’s storied Music Row, the museum moved to its current, $37 million, 130,000-square foot building in the heart of the city’s downtown cultural and entertainment district in 2001. It’s within walking distance of dozens of popular attractions including the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Gaylord Entertainment Center, Ryman Auditorium, Ernest Tub Record Shop and the string of legendary Lower Broadway honkytonks like Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge.
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Boasts Three Floors of Exhibits
The museum’s main permanent exhibit, dubbed “Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music” is just that. Covering the area of two city blocks, this exhibit takes visitors from the earliest days of country music, rooted in the folk traditions of the British Isles. Individual panel exhibits explain how, in the New World, these British Isles tunes became entangled with the ethnic music of other immigrants and the spiritual hymnals of African-American slaves who. Many are surprised to read that it was African-American slaves and minstrels who helped introduce the five-string banjo into the collective sound that would become the country music genre.
Sing Me Back Home continues a swath through each decade’s further development of the country music sound, highlighting important, but largely forgotten firsts such as Cindy Walker, one of the industry’s first female songwriters and DeFord Bailey, a master harmonica player who would become country music’s first African-American star and hold membership in the Grand Ole Opry from 1926 to 1941 when he was fired under controversial circumstances.
Along the way, you’ll stand just inches away from amazing artifacts including Elvis Presley’s 1960 “Solid Gold” Cadillac limousine; stage costumes from Hank Snow’s “Golden Rocket” Nudie suit to Faith Hill’s Gianni Versace dress; Mother Maybelle Carter’s Gibson L-5; Bob Wills’ fiddle; and a slew of interesting, authentic documents such as Merle Haggard’s pardon signed by then-President Ronald Reagan and Trisha Yearwood’s 1986 application for a job as a guide at the original Country Music Hall of Fame.
Those who were country fans during the 1970s and ‘80s will appreciate seeing the original Hee Haw cornfield set. A continuously playing series of mini-documentaries features personal stories from Loretta Lynn’s youthful crush on Ernest Tubb to Keith Urban preparing for a tour. Kids get into the act in the Archive Arcade, where they can design their own music stage costumes via interactive, touch screen displays. And a towering wall of Hatch Show Print Posters displays Southern entertainment advertisements from the 130-year-old print shop that still uses hand-carved wood blocks and a letterpress system that dates back to the 15th century.
Hall of Fame Section Pays Equal Homage to All Members
The Final stop in the tour of the facility is the Country Music Hall of Fame, housed in a 70-foot-high sunlit rotunda. Featured here are bronze statues of Hall of Fame members and the last of renowned artist Thomas Hart Benton’s paintings, “The Sources of Country Music.”
Benton was 84 years old in 1973 when he came out of retirement to complete his final commissioned painting. Subjects represent various stages of country music’s development. Two African-American slaves play banjos; a barefoot woman strums a lap dulcimer an instrument associated with early Appalachian ballads; bonnet-donning church women sing from hymnals; and a cowboy said to represent Tex Ritter plays a guitar while watching a train symbolizing change steam by. All seem to be singing their different songs in the same tune while barn dancers swirl along.
Take a Side Trip to the Historic RCA Studio B
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum also offers daily bus tours from the museum to the historic RCA Studio B on Nashville’s Music Row. Music City’s oldest surviving recording studio known as the cradle of the Nashville Sound has turned out hundreds of hits by top artists including Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson.
Today, thanks to the philanthropy of the Mike Curb Family Foundation, Belmont University students today use Studio B as a workshop for completing recording projects.
Devan Stuart - Devan Stuart is a longtime journalist and five-time Florida Press Association Award winner.
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