Eighteen years ago, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s “Night Train to Nashville” exhibition revived interest in soul music in Middle Tennessee between 1945 and 1970. He also won a Grammy Award for his two-disc compilation released alongside the museum showcase.
Now, thanks to a large grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, “The Night Train to Nashville,” revisiting the museum’s showcase exhibits from March 2004 to December 2005, will go online Thursday. Resurrected for free.
The event takes place January 25 at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Ford Theater. Performers include names familiar to the period and the exhibit, such as Fairfield Four’s Lebert Allison, Jimmy Church, Peggy Gaines Walker, Frank Howard, and Charles “Wig” Walker. Michael Gray of the museum and Brian Pearce of the National Museum of African American Music join the discussion. Tickets can be reserved on the exhibition’s website at www.countrymusichalloffame.org/night-train-to-nashville.
Online exhibit chronicles how acts like Jimi Hendrix and Little Richard performed at Black North Nashville venues like Club Baron, Club del Morocco and New Era Club doing. It also focuses on the genre’s roots, which emerged from pre-World War II jazz, blues, and gospel.
In segregated Nashville, jazz and blues flourished in black nightclubs and theaters, gospel influences took hold in churches, and musicians learned their craft in the city’s black high school and college education programs.
“The ‘Night Train to Nashville’ story provides important context for how R&B played an important role in Nashville becoming ‘Music City,'” said the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. CEO Kyle Young said. “Like the first exhibit in 2004, the online edition explores race relations and the city’s black musical culture, and how they influenced the creation of this incredible piece of music and the evolution of Nashville. It provides a multidimensional perspective from which to consider
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According to Young, the city’s development into a major recording center was against a backdrop of urban change, with racial barriers being tested and sometimes broken on bandstands, in recording studios and on the airwaves. It was also the time.
Specifically, the exhibit explores the “urban renewal” of running Interstate 40 through Jefferson Street, which ultimately devastated the city’s vibrant R&B nightlife.
Other important concepts are:
- Nashville’s influential R&B radio includes WLAC, a 50,000-watt powerhouse that blasted R&B on the midnight airwaves, and WSOK and WVOL, one of the first stations in the country to adopt the all-black format. will be
- R&B on TV, including syndicated TV shows “Night Train” and “The !!!! Beat”. Produced in Nashville, the show featured the city’s top heir artists alongside R&B’s top stars.
- The city’s R&B recording industry includes the live album “Etta James Rocks the House at the New Era Club,” Arthur Gunther’s classic “Baby Let’s Play House,” and Robert Knight’s 1967 R&B pop crossover hit “Everlasting.” , which included various landmark recordings. love. “
- R&B songwriters and performers with strong ties to country music include R&B singer-songwriters like Bobby Hebb from Nashville. Member of Roy Acuff’s band.
For more information about the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, visit www.countrymusichalloffame.org.