Multimedia exhibit highlights Nashville’s pioneering and influential R&B history
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has unveiled its newest online exhibition, Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970, which is available to access for free on the museum’s website. The multimedia exhibit explores the significant story of Nashville’s vibrant and pioneering R&B scene and its important role in helping the city to become a world-renowned music center.
Made possible by a major grant awarded from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the online exhibit revisits, updates and preserves the museum’s award-winning physical exhibit of the same name, which was featured in its 5,000-square-foot temporary gallery space nearly 20 years ago from March 2004 until December 2005.
Night Train to Nashville explores Nashville’s R&B activity in the decades following World War II. As Nashville’s country music industry was just getting started, the city was also a hotbed for R&B in the late 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, with celebrated performers — Country Music Hall of Fame member Ray Charles, Arthur Alexander, Ruth Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Etta James and Little Richard, among others — contributing to the city’s rich musical heritage. During this time, R&B reigned alongside country music in the city’s clubs and studios, on radio and on nationally syndicated television.
The multimedia exhibit showcases a vast array of historic photos, performance videos and audio recordings, as well as instruments, show posters, stage wear and other rare items featured in the original exhibit. The museum will also mount a physical Night Train to Nashville exhibit in its galleries in January 2024, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the original exhibit.
To mark the launch of the online exhibit, the museum will host a free conversation and performance with key members of the historic Nashville R&B music scene in partnership with the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM). The program on Wednesday, January 25th at 6:30 pm in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Ford Theater, will feature performances by Levert Allison of the Fairfield Four, Jimmy Church, Peggy Gaines Walker, Frank Howard, Charles “Wigg” Walker and other participants. The museum’s Michael Gray and NMAAM’s Dr. Bryan Pierce will join the discussion.
Online visitors can also access a full video archive of public programs hosted by the museum in relation to the original Night Train to Nashville exhibit and Nashville’s R&B history, including concerts, panel discussions and more. The online exhibit and upcoming physical exhibit will also be supported by new public programs.
During the physical exhibit’s original run, Night Train to Nashville earned the museum a Bridging the Gap Award in 2006 from the Nashville chapter of the NAACP for the promotion of interracial understanding. The exhibit’s companion album of the same name received a Grammy Award for Best Historical Album in 2004.
