Music in Music City (South Broadway)

Hello, I’m Don Cusic and I have lived and worked in Nashville for a long time. I’ve been a musician, songwriter, producer, music executive, college professor and author. I’ve written books on Eddy Arnold, Roger Miller, Hank Williams, Elvis, and the Beatles and my book Nashville Sound: An Illustrated Time Line answers the question of how and why Nashville became Music City, U.S.A. If you don’t like to read, there’s plenty of pictures. Belmont Honors students Claire Sandberg and Jayrah Trapp helped to curate this tour, and I’ve added my voice and experiences. I’ll be your narrator on this Nashville Sites walking tour.

Nashville has a lot of nicknames. We’ve been known as “The Athens of the South” and “The Wall Street of the South” and more recently “The ‘It’ City.” Some folks want to call us “The Hot Chicken Capital of the World” but it’s “Music City U.S.A.” that we’re best known for—and for good reason. We’re known for the “Nashville Sound” but it really should be the “Nashville Sounds” because our city is filled with all kinds of music. The Nashville story includes music that spans the spectrum—from Big Band to rhythm and blues, from jazz to classical, and black gospel and white gospel—but country music is Nashville’s bread and butter. We’re the “Capital of Country Music,” so that will be the focus of this country music inspired walking tour.

The first commercially successful country music record was made in Atlanta in 1923 by Fiddlin’ John Carson. The roots of country music are found in string bands comprised of a fiddle, banjo, and guitar. And the singers sang songs of hope and hard times, country living, country loving, and country dying. It’s the soundtrack of the working class—average, ordinary people who are the backbone of American life and culture. This Music in Music City Tour will cover the southern side of Broadway, the main street that runs through Nashville. You’ll see and hear music and musicians on Broadway and Honky Tonk Row. So you might want to use your headphones because you can’t keep country musicians quiet and you can’t lock country music up in a honky tonk. So follow us as we walk in the footsteps of singers and songwriters and take a trip down a musical memory lane. Feel free to stop and tap your foot along the way.

Begin the tour inside the Music City Center at the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, which is located off Demonbreun Street. The entrance is between Sixth and Fifth Avenues, directly across from Bridgestone Arena. Enter the doors and once you look around and locate the Hall of Fame, begin the narration.