Country Music Hall of Fame

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is one of Nashville's defining cultural landmarks and one of the most significant music museums anywhere in the world. Located in downtown Nashville, it has been called the "Smithsonian of country music," celebrated for its broad cultural impact, educational mission, and unrivaled collection of historically important artifacts related to country music. Chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964, the nonprofit museum has worked to collect, preserve, and interpret the evolving history of country music through exhibits, publications, educational programs, and more. From its origins on Music Row to its current 350,000-square-foot downtown campus, the institution has grown into a major anchor of Nashville's arts and entertainment landscape, drawing visitors from across the country and around the world.

History and Origins

The roots of the Country Music Hall of Fame stretch back to the early 1960s, when Nashville's music industry began organizing to formally honor the genre's greatest contributors. In 1961, the Country Music Association (CMA) announced the creation of the Country Music Hall of Fame and chose its first three inductees — Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Fred Rose. These first three members were announced in November at a CMA banquet held in conjunction with WSM-radio's tenth annual disc jockey convention. The Hall of Fame members' plaques, with facial likenesses and thumbnail biographies cast in bas-relief, were unveiled on the Grand Ole Opry by Ernest Tubb. Until 1967 these plaques and those for subsequent Hall of Fame inductees were displayed in the Tennessee State Museum in downtown Nashville.

In 1963, the CMA announced plans for a Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to be built on Music Row in Nashville. That same year, the state of Tennessee chartered the Country Music Foundation, Inc. (CMF) as a nonprofit, educational organization charged with operating the Museum. Through CMF, industry leaders raised money to build the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The CMA Building Committee engaged the services of Martin Jenter, of Jenter Exhibits, Inc., to research and design the interior exhibits. Work was completed and the components were shipped to Nashville, where they were assembled for the grand opening on April 1, 1967.

The original building exterior was built by the architectural firm W.B. Cambron & Co., Inc., designed as a barn-shaped structure located at the head of Music Row, erected on the site of a small Nashville city park. This hall of fame was modeled after the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Artifacts began to be displayed and a small library was begun in a loft above one of the museum's galleries.

During the following decades, the museum expanded steadily. During these years of rapid growth and expansion, the Museum's operations came to also include educational programs, CMF Press and CMF Records, the Country Music Foundation Library (1968), and the historic sites RCA Studio B (1977) and Hatch Show Print (1986).

Relocation and Expansion

After more than three decades on Music Row, the museum outgrew its original building and underwent a major transformation. To become more accessible, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum moved to a new, 140,000-square-foot facility in the heart of downtown Nashville's arts and entertainment district in May 2001. The new $37,000,000 Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum celebrated its grand opening on May 17, 2001. This facility features the Hall of Fame Rotunda, where the bronze plaques are displayed for future generations to honor and enjoy.

The museum's growth did not stop there. In 2014, the museum unveiled a $100 million expansion, doubling its size to 350,000 square feet of galleries, archival storage, education classrooms, retail stores, and special event space. The building itself is architecturally distinctive among Nashville landmarks. Forming a bass clef when viewed from the air, the unique building is an iconic feature of the Nashville skyline.

The museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and is among the most-visited history museums in the United States. Since 1987, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, certifying that the Museum operates according to the highest standards. Of the 33,000 museums nationwide, roughly 1,100 (3 percent) are accredited.

The Collection and Exhibitions

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is the home for this popular American art form, safeguarding over 2.5 million artifacts and featuring two expansive floors of gallery space, highlighting permanent and limited-engagement exhibitions. The museum's collections document country music from its folk roots through today. Artifacts and archival materials not on exhibit are housed in the museum's 46,000-square-foot secure, climate-controlled collections storage rooms and in the Frist Library and Archives, located on the museum's third floor.

The centerpiece of the museum experience is its permanent exhibition. In the museum's core exhibition, Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music, visitors are immersed in the history and sounds of country music. The story is revealed through artifacts, photographs, text panels, recorded sound, vintage video, and interactive touchscreens. A self-guided tour covering two floors of the Museum, Sing Me Back Home tells the story of country music from its pre-commercial roots in the nineteenth century through its vibrant life in the twenty-first century. Organized chronologically, the story moves through large subjects such as "Country During the War Years," while each glass artifact case has its own theme as well.

In addition to its permanent galleries, the museum mounts a rotating schedule of limited-engagement exhibits devoted to individual artists and themes. The Museum experience is home to the Hall of Fame Rotunda, offers world-class exhibitions, and so much more — from live music and family activities, to tours of Historic RCA Studio B and the iconic Hatch Show Print, a working letterpress print shop since 1879.

In addition to the galleries, the museum has the 776-seat CMA Theater, the Taylor Swift Education Center, and multi-purpose event rental spaces. The Museum also offers the Taylor Swift Education Center for students, teachers, and families, and dedicated performance spaces in the CMA Theater and Ford Theater, both of which regularly host nationally recognized live music and cultural events.

The Hall of Fame Induction Process

Membership in the Country Music Hall of Fame is the highest honor the genre bestows on its performers, songwriters, and industry figures. The Hall of Fame, which features both current and past artists, is what many country musicians consider the highest honor — and it is given to those who have made an extraordinary contribution to country music.

Election to the Country Music Hall of Fame is solely the prerogative of the CMA. New members, elected annually by a panel of industry executives chosen by the CMA, are inducted formally during the Medallion Ceremony, part of the annual reunion of Country Music Hall of Fame members hosted by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization and does not participate in the election itself.

Over the Hall of Fame's history, the number of new members inducted each year has varied from one to twelve, with no candidate having received sufficient votes in 1963. Bas-relief portraits cast in bronze honoring each Hall of Fame member were originally displayed at the Tennessee State Museum in downtown Nashville until the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum opened its own building in April 1967; in this barn-roofed facility at the head of Music Row, the bronze plaques formed a special exhibit. Through a licensing agreement with the CMA, the Museum exhibits the bronze plaques commemorating membership in a space and fashion befitting the honor.

Historic Properties and Educational Programs

Beyond its galleries, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum operates several historically significant Nashville institutions. Historic properties of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum include one of the country's oldest letterpress print shops, Hatch Show Print (located inside the museum), and Historic RCA Studio B (located on Music Row), Nashville's oldest surviving recording studio, where recordings by Country Music Hall of Fame members Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, and many others were made.

The Museum also operates historic RCA Studio B, which opened in 1957 and is the oldest surviving recording studio in Nashville. Preservation of Studio B is made possible through a partnership between the Mike Curb Family Foundation and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

On the publishing and recording side, the Museum operates the Grammy-winning reissue label CMF Records — award-winning releases include The Complete Hank Williams and Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945–1970 — and CMF Press, a publishing arm that releases books and exhibition catalogs delving into the rich story of country music.

Education is a central part of the museum's mission. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has developed multiple platforms to make its collection accessible to a wider audience, from weekly instrument demonstrations to its flagship songwriting program for schools, Words & Music. Visitors to the Museum's website can access a rich array of content, including online multimedia exhibitions, a series of exclusive video interviews and performances recorded at the Museum called Live at the Hall, and the Museum's free, searchable, online Digital Archive.

The museum's address is 222 Rep. John Lewis Way S, Nashville, TN 37203, placing it in the heart of the SoBro (South of Broadway) neighborhood, steps from Lower Broadway's live music venues and the Music City Center.