Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

The Hall of Fame itself came first: the Country Music Association created it in 1961, and its first three inductees were Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and Fred Rose. Roy Acuff, elected in 1962, was the first living member. The museum opened on April 1, 1967, in a barn-shaped building at the head of Music Row, a concept modeled on the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Further additions followed in 1974, 1977 and 1984.

In May 2001 the museum moved to a new facility in downtown Nashville's arts and entertainment district, initially about 140,000 square feet. A $100 million expansion in 2014 roughly doubled the complex to 350,000 square feet, adding galleries, archival storage, classrooms, retail and event space, and the building also includes the Taylor Swift Education Center.

The downtown building was designed by the Nashville firm Tuck-Hinton Architects. The design is full of music references: seen from above the plan is said to form a bass clef, the sweeping arch suggests the tailfin of a 1959 Cadillac, the front windows echo piano keys, and a diamond-shaped tower replicates the WSM radio tower first built in 1932 south of Nashville. The cylindrical rotunda's four tiered roof discs represent the 78 rpm record, the LP, the 45 and the CD. Materials were drawn from the Mid-South, including Georgia yellow pine and Crab Orchard stone.

The core exhibition is Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music, which tells the story through artifacts, photographs, recorded sound and video. New limited-run exhibitions open each year, including the annual American Currents: State of the Music. The museum reports holding more than 250,000 sound recordings, roughly 500,000 photographic items, over 30,000 moving images and more than 900 instruments.

Vehicles are a highlight of the displays: Elvis Presley's 1960 "Solid Gold" Cadillac limousine, Webb Pierce's 1962 Pontiac Bonneville convertible and Jerry Reed's 1980 Pontiac Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit II. The museum also holds Thomas Hart Benton's mural The Sources of Country Music, which Wikipedia describes as his final work, left unfinished at his death in his studio.

The museum also operates historic RCA Studio B on Music Row, which opened in 1957 and is described as the oldest surviving recording studio in Nashville; Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton and Waylon Jennings are among the artists who recorded there. Its preservation is supported by a partnership with the Mike Curb Family Foundation. Hatch Show Print, a long-running letterpress shop, is owned and operated by the museum and located within the complex. The CMA Theater inside the building seats 776.

Check the operator for current hours, ticketing, exhibitions and Studio B access, as these change. The museum fits comfortably into a Voyzo private tour of Nashville, where a private vehicle and driver with door-to-door pickup keeps the day flexible around a museum visit and other music-history stops.