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A museum for America's music
By PAMELA DAVIS
"I'm waiting a little while until people know who Patsy Cline is a little better and then I'll start a club," the singer wrote to a young fan. It is odd now to think back to a time when people didn't know who Cline was. "You can visualize her sitting and writing it and holding it and putting it in the mail," said Kyle Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum here. And you can imagine Cline standing on stage wearing the purple cowgirl dress with white leather fringe, crooning her hit Crazy. The outfit, sewn by Cline's mother, is in the same display case as the heartfelt letter penned by the young woman who would become a legend. These items are typical of the 1,000 or so artifacts filling two floors of the museum, which opened in May.
Long before the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame was even a dream, fans were trucking to Nashville to pay homage to America's decades of what was simply called country music. That first museum, opened three years after the Beatles came to the United States, was crowded with the vinyl records, costumes and instruments that figured in the popularity of the music. The new 130,000-square-foot facility is located near the revered Ryman Auditorium -- the former home of The Grand Ole Opry -- and the honky-tonks where many performers paid their dues. The museum is drawing about 4,000 people a month, less than a tenth of what museum officials expect to eventually come. Half a million visitors a year would be in the range of attendance at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Experience Music Project in Seattle. But the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has already become a venue for major events. When Garth Brooks came back to country music after a four-year absence, he held the press conference in the new museum. When Country Music Television started a new video countdown show, Most Wanted Live, they set up shop in the lobby of the museum. And when John Prine gave a concert to raise money for his child's school, he did it at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. "Nashville and music are inextricably linked. We felt this really needed to be something the city could embrace and be one of the symbols of the city," museum director Young said in a recent interview. "In the old building, local visitation was so small as to not even be measured. Here, it's a significant part." Telling old stories in new waysYoung, 48, is almost as much apart of the museum as Hank Williams' boots. Twenty-six years ago, in between college and what he thought would be law school, Young answered a newspaper ad for a job as ticket taker at the museum. He has been employed there ever since. The old museum was a somewhat random display of music artifacts; lighting and exhibition cases were not always well-positioned. The new version is 41/2 times the size of the old building and includes four theaters, a broadcast booth for XM satellite radio, a restaurant, a research library and offices for the Country Music Foundation. And the exhibits have been designed to follow a narrative. "In a real broad sense, we're telling the story of America. This is a nation of immigrants, and the music comes from those sources," Young said. "In another large sense, we're telling stories of excellence -- it's hard to get into the Hall of Fame. We are particularly telling the story of this particular music, how it's developed. "Then, in a sense, we're also telling the story of the city which has driven the country music business in the last 50 years." Told chronologically, the music story starts in the 1920s and, displaying items such as one of Minnie Pearl's price-tagged hats, moves to the present, represented in part by a tank top that belonged to Billy Ray Cyrus. Yes, the Achy Breaky Heart guy. "We're telling the story, and Billy Ray Cyrus is part of the story," said Young. "Our job is to pick the things and the people who tell this narrative. He occupies a prominent place in contemporary country music." Museum visitors are greeted by a Reba McEntire recording in the barnboard-lined elevator that takes them to the third floor, the start of the displays. This top level is designed to evoke the feeling of being backstage, complete with hardwood floors, curtain pulleys and robes. The entire museum was designed as an interactive experience. Picking up a headphone, visitors can hear Flatt & Scruggs' Foggy Mountain Breakdown. Walking into a listening booth, they hear Ray Price sing Crazy Arms. Case after case displays objects such as Tex Ritter's saddle, a program from the night in 1949 that Hank Williams debuted on The Grand Ole Opry, the notes J.D. Miller made while writing It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels, even Naomi Judd's rusted wringer washer. A popular piece at the original museum, one of Elvis Presley's Cadillacs, now is parked next to Webb Pierce's Pontiac. As visitors walk down the hall, large screens present videos of Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Patty Loveless, Randy Travis, Loretta Lynn, Charlie Pride and others talking about their musical influences. Behind the continuous videos, visitors may see a curator preparing a newly acquired instrument or costume for exhibit. The two-story archive is in the center of the building and also is visible to the public. "We wanted people to see our real work, the work that goes on behind the glass. It is the core and the essence of who we are and what we do," Young said. The facility has possibly the nation's largest collection dedicated to a single kind of music, according to Young. This collection includes photographs, film, recordings, instruments, clothing, business documents and song manuscripts. Visitors cannot enter the archives, however. There are more than 1-million pieces in the collection, and only 10 percent of them are on display. "We have a lot of valuable artifacts, and we don't want everything all cluttered up," Young said. One of the most popular attractions is a video called Changing Channels, which documents the history of country music on television, with clips from Flatt & Scruggs on the Beverly Hillbillies to Loretta Lynn's Crisco commercial. The second floor of the museum is designed to represent a recording studio, with vinyl floors and acoustical-panel walls. Exhibits include a portion of performer Marty Stuart's collection. Stuart, 43, has been collecting country music memorabilia since he was a teenager playing with Lester Flatt. "Marty, in certain ways, is our conscience," said Young. "He understands the position that this music occupies in America's culture. Marty is a student of the music, but he's much more a fan. He lives it and breathes it." Stuart's pieces include boots and guitars belonging to Johnny Cash, Hank Williams' manuscript for Your Cheating Heart and Roy Rogers' Stetson. Other items displayed on the second floor include a Trisha Yearwood job application to the Hall of Fame in 1986 while she was a college student in Nashville (she got a job as a tour guide), one of Garth Brooks' shirts and a guitar, a red polka-dot dress belonging to Loretta Lynn, all 11 of Roger Miller's Grammy Awards, a pair of Willie Nelson's sneakers and one of Dolly Parton's wigs. Also there is the Songwriter's Theater, where several times a week songwriters perform in the round and answer questions from museumgoers. In the Demonstration Gallery, musicians show how to play instruments and talk about their history. The Star Experience Theater shows a documentary about life on the road for Tim McGraw and his wife, Faith Hill, during the couple's Soul 2 Soul tour last year. A bridge connects the main gallery with the Hall of Fame -- bronze plaques of the 86 hall inductees on the walls of the rotunda. The space is quiet and bathed in natural light. "We also wanted it to be a contemplative, churchlike space that would be quiet, magnificent, large and of the right scale commensurate with the award itself." This part of the building was designed after a railroad water tower. The pointed steel structure jutting through the roof of the Hall is a replica radio antenna, a nod to Nashville station WSM, which began broadcasts of The Grand Ole Opry in 1927. The Hall of Fame brings all the images from the two galleries together. These men and women, regardless of what they wore to an awards ceremony or how many guitars they owned, influenced a music that continues to shape America. If you goGETTING THERE: The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is in downtown Nashville's entertainment district, at 222 Fifth Ave. S. Southwest offers direct flights to Nashville International Airport from the Tampa Bay area; other carriers offer flights as well. Rental car agencies are at the airport, and some area hotels offer shuttle service. From 1-40 West, take Exit 209B. Turn right on Demonbreun to Fifth Avenue S. THE MUSEUM: Open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is $14.95 for adults, $7.95 for children ages 6 to 15. Children under 6 are free. The museum restaurant, located in the conservatory, serves contemporary cuisine. A museum store offers books, music and Hall of Fame and Museum merchandise. CMT's Most Wanted Live television show broadcasts Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. (Central Time) in the museum's lobby. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Call toll-free 1-800-852-6437 or visit the Web site at www.countrymusichalloffame.com.
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