Country Music Hall of Fame - Nashville - 6/21/2016

We hopped off the GrayLine bus before we got back to the train station so we could visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Ryman Theater.  Photos of the Ryman will be in another post.

Here is a little Wikipedia information on the Hall of Fame:

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is one of the world’s largest and most active popular music research centers and the world’s largest repository of country music artifacts. Early in the 1960s, as the Country Music Association’s campaign to publicize country music was shifting into high gear, CMA leaders determined that a new organization was needed to operate a country music museum and to carry out research and education activities beyond CMA’s scope as a trade organization. Toward this end, the nonprofit Country Music Foundation (CMF) was chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964 to collect, preserve, and publicize information and artifacts relating to the history of country music. Through CMF, industry leaders raised money to build the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which opened on April 1, 1967. Located at the head of Music Row, the museum was erected on the site of a small Nashville city park. At this point, artifacts began to be displayed and a small library was begun in a loft above one of the museum’s galleries.^[1]

Early in the 1970s the basement of the museum building was partially complete, and library expansion began, embracing not only recordings but also books and periodicals, sheet music and songbooks, photographs, business documents, and other materials. At the outset, CMA staff had run the museum, but by 1972 the museum (already governed by its own independent board of directors) acquired its own small staff, which has steadily increased to over 150 full-time professionals.

Building expansion took place in 1974, 1977, and 1984 to store and display the museum’s growing collection of costumes, films, historic cars, musical instruments, and other artifacts. An education department was created to conduct ongoing programs with Middle Tennessee schools, an oral history program was begun, and a publications department was launched to handle books, as well as the Journal of Country Music.

There are several video stations that loop historic country music groups and individuals performing.  It is fascinating to watch these pioneers of country music and realize how it has changed over the years.

If you like looking at vintage and historic guitars, this is the place to be.  I was never a great country music fan but I recognized so many of the performers who had their clothing and guitars memorialized in the Hall of Fame.

Ricky Puckett owned this nickel-plated guitar in the 1930's.

Webb Pierce had highly customized Pontiac....way over the top.

One of my all time favorite groups, The Lovin' Spoonful, added to Nashville's vocabulary with one of their songs...Nashville Cats.

The entry hall and food court at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

An inverted radio tower decorated the room where all the plaques of the members of the Hall of Fame hange on the walls.

The next post will be for our tour of the Ryman Theater in Nashville.

Nashville - 6/21/2016

We have driven through Nashville several times on the way to somewhere else but never stopped.  We were in much the same situation this time but made sure to include a extra days in our travels to see the main sights in this legendary city.  Here is what Nashville has to say about itself.

"Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Legendary country music venues include the Grand Ole Opry House, home of the famous “Grand Ole Opry” stage and radio show, in Music Valley. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and historic Ryman Auditorium are Downtown, as is the District, packed with legendary honky-tonks, dive bars and dance halls".We saw pretty much all this and more during our stay.

Because of the number of photos we took, we had to break down the trip into several posts. This first post covers the city tour that we took on an open air bus operated by Gray Line Tours.  It was a great way to cover the entire city with commentary as we drove.  We then went back to spend more time in certain places of interest like the Ryman Theater, the Country Music Hall of Fame, Music Row, and the Parthenon.  Post on all these special places will follow later.

Downtown Nashville is a rich mix of old and new.  The growth of Nashville's population and business' has been explosive in recent decades and the growth continues.

This is one of the Gray Line buses but not the one we took.  Ours was a double decker open topped vehicle that offered more of a panoramic view of the city.  All the buses are "Hop on hop off" so you can stop anywhere on the tour to look more closely at a location and then catch the next bus to continue the tour.

The buses all leave from the old rail station at the foot of Broadway on the banks of the Cumberland River.

Sigrid is ready to go.

Looking up Broadway from the train station.

The AT&T Building looks like something out of a Batman movie.

Taking photos from a bus in a crowded downtown area is not always easy.  This building is the Music City Visitors Center and is built in the shape of a guitar although it is hard to see in this photo.

Note the curved walls and the color of the siding.

More of the businesses on Broadway or as they refer to it "Music Row".

The old Marathon Motor manufacturing buildings.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Marathon.

Marathon Motor Works was an early automobile manufacturer based in Tennessee. It grew out of an earlier company called Southern Engine and Boiler Works founded in 1889 which made industrial engines and boilers in Jackson, Tennessee. As such, the firm had metal-working and power plant experience which could easily be transferred into the then-new and rapidly expanding automobile industry. It turned its attention in this direction shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. From 1907 to 1914, the company manufactured the Marathon automobile.

The Union Station Hotel.

One of the many bars, restaurants and shops on Broadway.  Most of the bars have live music all day.

Sigrid even got to meet Elvis.

Lunch was at the Acme Feed and Seed on Broadway in Nashville.  Sigrid had some wonderful Grits and Shrimp there.

The Tennessee Titans Stadium is just across the river from downtown.  As you can see, Nissan has a large presence in Nashville.

More to come on other venues in the Nashville area on the next post.