Music Row is a historic district located southwest of downtown

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

, United States. Widely considered the heart of Nashville's

entertainment industry Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousan ...

, Music Row has also become a metonymous nickname for the music industry as a whole, particularly in

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

gospel music Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is co ...

, and

contemporary Christian music Contemporary Christian music, also known as CCM, Christian pop, and occasionally inspirational music is a genre of modern popular music, and an aspect of Christian media, which is lyrically focused on matters related to the Christianity, Christi ...

The district is centered on 16th and 17th Avenues South (called Music Square East and Music Square West, respectively, within the Music Row area), along with several side streets.

Lacy J. Dalton Lacy J. Dalton (born Jill Lynne Byrem; October 13, 1946) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is known for her gritty, powerful vocals, which ''People Magazine'' likened to a country equivalent of Bonnie Raitt. Dalton had a n ...

had a hit song in the 1980s about 16th Avenue, while the area served as namesake to

Dolly Parton Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman, known primarily for her work in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album ...

's 1973 composition " Down on Music Row". The area hosts the offices of numerous

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the pr ...

publishing houses Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

, music licensing firms,

recording studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enou ...

video production Video production is the process of producing video content for video. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard dri ...

houses, along with other businesses that serve the music industry, as well as

radio network There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many ( simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass-media entertainment, and the two-way radio ( duplex communication) t ...

s, and

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

s. '' MusicRow Magazine'' has reported on the music industry since 1981. In present years, the district has been marked for extensive historical preservation and local as well as national movements to revive its rich and vibrant history. A group dedicated to this mission is the Music Industry Coalition.

History

In his 1970 book ''The Nashville Sound'', Paul Hemphill described Music Row as the area "where almost all of Nashville's music-related businesses operate out of a smorgasbord of renovated old single- and two-story houses and sleek new office buildings."

RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also A ...

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. ...

, and

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the A ...

each completed at least 90 percent of country recordings at music Row. Elsewhere, observed Hemphill, Music Row had "a montage of 'For Sale' signs ndold houses done up with false fronts to look like office buildings." Throughout the 1960s, property values on Music Row grew, for instance a 50-foot lot from $15,000 in 1961 to $80,000 in 1966.

Points of interest

Music Row includes historic sites such as

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

's famed Studio B and

Studio A ''Studio A'' is an hour-long live variety, comedy and sketch program produced as the RMITV Flagship production between 2008–2011 and was hosted by Dave Thornton and then later Tommy Little. Supporting cast included many up and coming comedian ...

, where hundreds of notable and famous musicians have recorded.

Country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

entertainers

Roy Acuff Roy Claxton Acuff (September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992) was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the "King of Country Music", Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedow ...

and

Chet Atkins Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music ...

have streets named in their honor within the area. The

Country Music Association The Country Music Association (CMA) was founded in 1958 in Nashville, Tennessee. It originally consisted of 233 members and was the first trade organization formed to promote a music genre. The objectives of the organization are to guide and enha ...

(CMA) opened its $750,000 headquarters in Music Row in 1967. The

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

building included CMA's executive offices and the

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has amas ...

. Next door to the CMA headquarters is Broadcast Music Inc. The first

Country Music Hall of Fame The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has ama ...

sat at the corner of Music Square East and Division Street from April 1967 to December 2000, but the building has since been torn down and the museum moved to a state-of-the-art building 11 blocks away in

Downtown Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

in May 2001. One area of Music Row, along Demonbreun Street, was once littered with down-market tourist attractions and vanity "museums" of various country music stars. These began to disappear in the late 1990s with the announced move of the Country Music Hall of Fame. The strip sat largely vacant for a few years but has been recently redeveloped with a number of upscale restaurants and bars serving the Downtown and Music Row areas. At the confluence of Demonbreun Street, Division Street, 16th Avenue South, and Music Square East is the "Music Row

Roundabout A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford Eng ...

," a circular intersection designed to accommodate a continuous flow of traffic. Flanking the intersection to the west is Owen Bradley Park, a very small park dedicated to notable

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

, performer, and publisher

Owen Bradley William Owen Bradley (October 21, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American musician and record producer who, along with Chet Atkins, Bob Ferguson, Bill Porter, and Don Law, was one of the chief architects of the 1950s and 1960s Nashville so ...

. Within the park is a life-size bronze statue of Bradley behind a piano. Inside the roundabout is a large statue called the " Musica". At the other end of Music Row, across Wedgewood Avenue sits the Belmont University campus, and

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

is also adjacent to the area. Belmont is of particular note because of its

Mike Curb Michael Curb (born December 24, 1944) is an American musician, record company executive, motorsports car owner, philanthropist, and former politician. He is also the founder of Curb Records where he presently serves as the chairman. Curb also ...

College of Entertainment & Music Business (CEMB), part of Belmont University and a major program in its commercial music performance division.

References

;Sources * ;Notes

History

Points of interest

See also

References

Further reading