Music Appreciation

Standing across the street and looking at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, I knew there had to be some significance to the design of the building. It wasn't until I was looking at shot glasses in the gift shop, that I saw it. Do you see it? A piano, no? (No, silly...that's not the shot glass.) ...and according to Wikipedia, "more conspicuous images include the diamond-shaped radio mast, which is a miniaturized replica of the WSM tower located a few miles south of Nashville. The round discs surrounding the tower symbolize the different size records and CDs country music has been recorded upon. When viewed from the air, the building is in the shape of a bass clef. The north-west corner of the building juts out like the tail fin of a '57 Chevy." That's pretty darn cool! (Please don't judge me for using Wikipedia. I have often discouraged the use of Wikipedia saying that it's not a good source of quality academic research material...primarily because anybody can add to it and it has had a bad rep for being unmoderated.)

The challenge in describing the experience of touring this facility is in being adequate. I cannot possibly do this museum visit justice.

Most of the music I listen to is country (if you don't count the workout mix on my MP3 player). I enjoy it, because every country music song is a story to which I can often relate and that I can understand (the words, that is). My love for country music could certainly be rooted in the countless Saturdays that we (my siblings and I) were forced to watch Hee Haw on network television...courtesy of my father. I doubt it, though, because I hated it. If we didn't want to spend time doing anything else that was our only choice...we had only one TV in the house and it was controlled by...yep! you guessed it...Dad. What I did not know at the time is that Roy Clark, Buck Owens and many of the cast members were already country music legends in their own right. I had no idea. I thought they were just a bunch o' redneck hillbilly Hee Haw'ers. Well, I was wrong.

One of the major things that the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum does it that it displays/teaches/shows the history of country music (yes, including Hee Haw)...going way back. Country music is rooted in the music of the British Isles and traveled to the New World with them Englishters. The first recordings and radio shows took place in the 1920's. Along the tour, we read and heard more information and trivia about country music artists than we will ever remember, but had a lot of fun listening to the various styles of music and learning about its evolution. LOTS of display cases include stuff that belonged to the artists (like clothes and instruments), pictures, albums, history notes and other memorabilia. And, although I got to see Dwight Yoakam's pants, I did not get to touch them. Darn! There are a couple of mini-theaters in the museum which have films running on a loop. One chronicles how country music has changed into what it currently is today and includes clips from Hee Haw, Dolly Parton's TV show, Glen Campbell's show, country music award shows, etc. The other seemed to be nothing but Hank Williams, Jr. talking about guns and cannons from the Civil War that have been in his family for many years. The topics discussed may have been more varied, but we didn't feel like staying and watching any longer than we did.

Other cool stuff: Elvis' customized Fleetwood limo (24K gold trimmed, paint made of diamond, gold, and pearl dust...I think), Webb Pierce's Silver Dollar Cadillac (trimmed with guns, horses, and decked out on the inside with silver dollars all over the dashboard, riding leather-esque seats & floors, a saddle for the console, and stirrups for the gas & break pedals), a Marty Robbins exhibit (including many of his elaborately embroidered suits with their matching boots), the Williams Family exhibit (as in Hank and Hank, Jr.), and two walls full of gold and platinum record replicas where you can open a the record panel and listen to various recording artists' hit songs. The Williams Family exhibit includes just about anything you'd want to see: family history and pictures, instruments, clothing, furniture, etc. The list goes on. This family really did an amazing job of saving memorabilia relevant to their history, especially as it relates to their place in the history of country music. Unfortunately, this is not a permanent exhibit nor is the Marty Robbins exhibit. They will end at some point to make room for other similar exhibits to honor different artists.

If you are interested in a lot more detail about the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, you should visit the website. It would be silly for me to tell you what is already published about it. What is very difficult, however, is to convey how exciting this is...the history, the memorabilia, and the seemingly trivial information. Yes, it all excites me and I enjoy it enormously. I loved this place and would love to go back to be sure I didn't overlook anything!