Country Music Hall of Fame

No visit to Nashville would be complete without a little Country Music. I’ll be honest with you, I know next to nothing about Country music beyond some Patsy Cline and the occasional Johnny Cash. I vaguely remember some Kenny Rogers Gambler movie that I saw on TV. I also seem to remember watching a little Hee-Haw when I was about 9 years old. My latest impressions have been that Country is now essentially interchangeable with pop music. Lots of overproduced “crossover” music.



With that being said, I didn’t know what to expect from our visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame yesterday. First off, the building itself is wonderful. It’s got a sort of modern industrial look to it, with lots of exposed steel, glass and wooden floors designed by local architect Tuck Hinton and Associates. Hats off. I’ll also note that whomever did the A/C work did a spectacular job with the tough spaces they had to work with.















The hall is three stories tall. The displays themselves range from showcase style displays of memorabilia to interactive displays. There were two featured displays. The first was Kitty Wells “The Queen of Country Music” . I have to claim ignorance here and I’m sorry to say I hadn’t previously heard of her. She is most notable for being the first woman with a big country hit that demonstrated that women could be commercially viable. The display include lots of personal jewelry, clothing, photos and some video of performances.







































The second was a large interactive display of the Hank Williams family. Lots of photos and personal items. I know of Hank Williams and I know that Hank Jr is a big star, but again, know next to nothing about them. The displays included video interviews of Hank Jr and his children which were informative and touching. The interactive display was a sort of video scrap book where you could browse along and read old newspaper articles. I was so pooped out from trying to drink everything in on the floor above that I really couldn’t focus enough attention on this stuff.

My favorite display was a series of listening “booths” called “Rediscover a Classic” where you would find a very nice display of a classic 45 record and a recording to enjoy. Some real offbeat yodeling or borderline crooner stuff. It appears that they rotate these pretty regularly.

Which brings me to another impressive facet of the Hall. They archive and preserve a massive amount of recordings. Take a look at the shelves upon shelves of recordings and the recording equipment where they systematically transfer the recordings to tape for preservation.































There were also lots of video displays of rare early footage of performers. I particularly liked one of the Jordanairres, a gospel quartet and will definitely be looking them up.

There was also a particularly well done, “Country Music in TV and the Movies” ½-hour semi-documentary that ended with Johnny Cash doing his version of the Nine Inch Nails song, “Hurt” where he reflects on his life to a montage of images from his past. It is by far the better version of the song and hits you like a ton of bricks.

There were also some really off the wall items being displayed such as















Carl Perkin’s “Blue Suede Shoes”






























































Webb Pierce’s “Silver Dollar Convertible” complete with six-gun door handles.















Elvis Presley’s “Solid Gold Piano”

Lots of stage jackets and gowns too including this lovely Patsy Cline one.




















Elvis may have been the King of Rock N Roll but boy did he have tacky taste.

Now from tacky to classy. Take a look at the wall of gold records lining the rotunda wall.















The display makes quite an impression. The record display continues on some interior walls where you can listen to quite a few of them by hitting a button on the display. Nice touch.

















































"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash"

After, all that, the presentation Hall of Fame plaque room was a bit of a let down. The room was a bit plain and a some of the lettering on the displays didn't match the original font when the artist's year of death was added to a previously made plaque. A minor complaint, but it felt a little cheap to me.
















































I enjoyed the visit very much. The presentation really showed the breadth and depth of the genre and really opened my eyes to how much variety there is in "Country" music.