Years back, it was our first time to go to the new Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum building, and a very witty, former band member, when asked if he knew how to get to the Hall of Fame quipped, “Yes, it all starts with a song.” We all know that’s true.
This week, fortunately, we knew how to get there and we enjoyed a great tour with the very knowledgeable museum’s, Ryan Halquist. If you haven’t had the chance to tour this great museum, put it on your bucket list for your visit to Nashville. The museum has incredible displays of the original instruments from the greatest names in Country Music and of course all sorts of clothing, original lyrics as well as Elvis’s gold Cadillac, the Smokey & The Bandit car, and Ferlin Huskey’s custom Pontiac which you’ll just have to see to believe.
Right now there’s a tribute to the great Bill Anderson that you don’t want to miss as well as a display about West Coast country and more. You can read more about the museum here https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/
In these photos below you can see some of the unique items we enjoyed.
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- Ryan Halquist of CMHOF & Museum, The Farewell Party Band and me.
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- My pedal steel player, Boo Miller, pointed out his friend, master steel guitar musician, Lloyd Green’s, Sho-Bud guitar that he played on many hits including D-I-V-O-R-C-E by Tammy Wynette. Lloyd Green’s brilliance can be heard on my song “Farewell Party” but he wasn’t playing this particular guitar when we recorded that one.
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- You’ll want to see this in person. It’s Elvis’s gold cadillac. We were told the paint was made from crushed diamonds and fish scales to add the shine. Maybe it was rhinestones but whatever, it shines. It also had a refrigerator that made ice, a telephone to talk to the driver and his 45 single hits lining the inside.
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- With Ryan Halquist, manager of Advancement-Major Gifts for the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.
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- Chad Phillips and I really enjoyed seeing this early prototype of the solid body electric guitar designed by the famous guitar wizard Les Paul. They call this guitar “The Log”. Les Paul wanted to show that a solid body would hold string vibrations longer and make a better tone than the usual hollow-body guitar.