Founder of PLA Media, Pam Lewis. Image courtesy of PLA Media.
Stop 15 of 25
PLA Media
A longtime advocate and executive in the music industry, Pam Lewis purchased these five buildings in the early 1990s and restored them. She renovated 1303 16th Avenue South to house the business offices for her company—PLA Media. For this renovation, Lewis was awarded a Certificate of Merit from the Tennessee Historical Commission.
Founded in 1985, PLA Media works to promote record labels and independent artists. Their work includes media coverage, special events, and promotions. They have also helped to create historical music attractions like the Tina Turner Museum, Patsy Cline Museum, Skull’s Rainbow Room, and the Johnny Cash Museum. Some of the artists that Lewis’s company have represented include legends like Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, and the Judds.
In 1987, Pam Lewis helped to discover Garth Brooks. He may have been a man with “Friends in Low Places,” but Lewis helped change all that. Since 1987, Brooks's integration of rock and roll elements into the country genre has made him the best-selling artist in U.S. history. With his ninth studio album, Man Against Machine, Garth Brooks’s total record sales of 135 million in the U.S. surpassed Elvis Presley’s 134.5 million in 2018. Lewis also helped discover Trisha Yearwood in 1991, who became the first ever female country singer to sell one million copies of her first single. PLA’s two biggest superstars, Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks, married in 2005.
Continue walking north on Sixteenth Avenue South. Big Machine Records is just ahead on the left. There is no sign in front of the building, but the address is 1219 Sixteenth Avenue South.
Tour Stops
Owen Bradley Park, Musica Statue, Buddy Killen Circle
1 Music Square East at Division Street
ASCAP and Sony Music
2 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203
Tree Publishing, Former Fire Hall No. 7
16 Music Square West, Nashville, TN
RCA Studio B
1611 Roy Acuff Place, Nashville, TN 37203
Carnival Music and Mural
24 Music Square West, Number 2, Nashville TN
RCA Studio A
30 Music Square West, Number 100, Nashville, TN 37203
Word Entertainment
25 Music Square West, Nashville, TN
Starstruck Studios
40 Music Square West, Nashville TN
iHeartMedia
55 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203
Quadrafonic or Quad Studios, Round Hill Music
1802 Grand Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212
Scarritt Bennett Center
1027 Eighteenth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37212
Ocean Way Nashville Studios
1200 Seventeenth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37212
Little Sisters of the Poor, now Vanderbilt University
1400 Eighteenth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203
Allentown Studios, formerly Jack’s Tracks
1308 Sixteenth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37212
PLA Media
1303 Sixteenth Avenue South A, Nashville, TN 37212
Big Machine Records
1219 Sixteenth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37212
House of David
1205 Sixteenth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37212
Landmark Community Bank, formerly CBS Songs and Sony Music
1013 Sixteenth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37212
Belmont Church
68 Music Square East, Nashville, TN 37203
Curb College, Quonset Hut, and Columbia Records
34 Music Square East, Nashville, TN 37203
SESAC and Country Music Association (CMA)
35 Music Square East, Nashville TN
Decca Records
27 Music Square East, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
Warner Music and Warner Production
21 Music Square East, Nashville, TN 37203
BMI and Frances Preston
10 Music Square East Nashville, TN 37203
Spence Manor Motor Hotel and Webb Pierce Guitar Swimming Pool
11 Music Square East, Nashville, TN 37203