Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music

January 01, 2009 - January 01, 2020

The Country Music Hall of Fame^® and Museum's core, permanent exhibit tells the story of country music from its pre-commercial roots in the nineteenth century through its vibrant life today. This exciting, multi-layered experience includes artifacts, photographs, original recordings, archival video, newly produced films, touchscreen interactive media, and beautifully rendered text panels. The exhibit immerses the visitor in the history and sounds of country music, its meanings, and the lives and voices of its honored personalities.

The self-guided tour is organized chronologically and covers two floors of the Museum. Part one is titled Sing Me Back Home: The Journey Begins, Folk Roots to the 1960s. In 2010 the Museum greatly expanded and renamed the second part: Dreaming My Dreams: The Journey Continues, 1960s to the Present.

The story moves through large subjects such as "Country During the War Years," while each glass artifact case has a unique theme. Visitors can read about the music and its makers or let the powerful photos, instruments, costumes - and especially the music - tell the story by themselves.

Throughout your journey you are able to see the two-floor, glassed-in central archives where the Museum's vast collection is housed and where Museum staff are seen working with historical artifacts and recordings. This unprecedented view into the core archives is like a window into a shared history and the processes from which the Museum exhibits emerge.

At the close of the journey, visitors enter the Hall of Fame Rotunda, the hallowed space where the Country Music Hall of Fame members are honored alongside American master Thomas Hart Benton's famous last painting, The Sources of Country Music.

Sing Me Back Home is just what the title suggests: an exploration of the power of music to make living history and to connect us to our deepest feelings.

This permanent exhibition is included with museum admission and free to museum members.