L&C Tower

Stop on Fourth Avenue at the Bankers Alley sign and look up and to your right. You will see a tall skyscraper with a gigantic L&C at the top. That’s the Life and Casualty Tower (also known as the L&C Tower) designed by architect Edwin A. Keeble. As Nashville’s first post-World War II skyscraper, the L&C Tower was the tallest building in the city when it was completed in 1957—standing at 409 ft. with thirty floors. The Life & Casualty Insurance Company, founded in 1903, occupied the building, and dominated the insurance business in Nashville in its early years. 

Life & Casualty’s business rival was National Life, and they also had competing radio stations. National Life-owned WSM is better known because of the Grand Ole Opry, but Life & Casualty-owned WLAC was the first commercial radio station in Nashville. Its original call sign was WDAD, which launched in September 1925. Many claim that WLAC’s old-fashioned fiddle show on Saturday nights inspired WSM to create its “Saturday Night Barn Dance,” which became the Grand Ole Opry. 

WLAC is best-known for its nightly programs of blues and R&B from the 1940s to the 1970s. It all started after World War II, when African American veterans returned home. Disk jockey Gene Nobles began to receive letters from students at Fisk University and Tennessee A & I (now Tennessee State University) requesting blues and jazz. And so that’s what he played. With one of the strongest signals in the country, especially at night, WLAC’s broadcast could be picked up across the country. The station attracted a strong following from Black listeners in the South, but also introduced white audiences to the new sounds of African American musicians, such as B.B. King, Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, and Fats Domino. One of the legendary B.B. King’s greatest hits was “How Blue can you Get?” Here’s a sample.

I've been down hearted baby

Ever since the day we met

I said I've been down hearted baby

Ever since the day we met

Our love is nothing but the blues, woman

Baby, how blue can you get?

Some historians argue that these broadcasts helped lay the foundation for the early rock and roll movement of the 1950s. For more on the L&C building take our Capitol and Church Architecture or Food for Thought tours.

Fun fact: Just as National Life branched out from radio to television with WSMV, so did Life & Casualty with WLAC-TV, launched in 1954. The call sign was changed to WTVF (Channel 5) in 1975, one year after hiring their first female co-anchor: Oprah Winfrey.

Take a LEFT onto Bankers Alley toward the sign for Skull’s Rainbow Room and then an immediate RIGHT onto Printers Alley. Continue walking down Printers Alley as you listen to the narration.