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Updates Include New Multimedia and Artifacts from Tom T. Hall, Dolly Parton, Dottie West and Many More
NASHVILLE, Tenn., March 23, 2010 - Additions and revisions to the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum's core exhibition, Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music, are now underway. These changes, which will bring the story of country music forward in time and conclude with a glimpse of the future, will be completed in May 2010.
The transformation, which is taking place in the Museum's second floor gallery, includes new, vibrantly colored and oversized portraits of country music's duet kings and queens: Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette and George Jones and Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner. It also features new video clips and dozens of new artifacts, spotlighting artists including:
- Dolly Parton. Items newly on display include Parton's handwritten lyrics to "Jolene" and a pink satin dress. The dress, a bell-sleeved confection embellished with rhinestones and lace, was made by Parton's longtime designer, Lucy Adams, and worn by Dolly in 1970 to "Dolly Parton Day" festivities in her hometown of Sevierville,Tennessee.
- Tom T. Hall. Visitors can check out Hall's acoustic guitar. Hall purchased the instrument in the early 1960s from songwriter Merle Kilgore, who said he'd never been able to write a hit on it. Hall had better luck, using it to compose "Harper Valley P.T.A."
- Dottie West. A must-see is West's Bob Mackie-designed stage costume. The creamy white jacket is encrusted with bugle beads and silver sequins, and its sleeves feature an elaborate fringe of ostrich feathers. Matching pants, cowboy boots and cowboy hat complete the head-to-toe glam look.
There are also newly installed artifacts from Ronnie Milsap, Johnny Paycheck, Kenny Rogers, Mel Tillis, Tanya Tucker and many more now on display. Updates to Sing Me Back Home will continue through May.
As announced last December, revisions to Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music, will focus on country music's last five decades; themes will include country's collision with mainstream American culture from roughly 1965 to 1971; the new directions of the l970s including country-rock, pop-country, the rise of southern rock and the renaissance of full-strength classic country; and the 1980s contrast between the fashionable "Urban Cowboy" craze and the more lasting values of a new generation of major stars like George Strait, Reba McEntire, Ricky Skaggs and the Judds.
The chronological narrative will be punctuated in the second floor gallery's theater, where the broader topic of songs inspired by topical events and social and political issues will be explored using video clips such as Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee," Loretta Lynn's "The Pill," the Dixie Chicks' "Goodbye Earl" and Toby Keith's "The Angry American."
On the other side of the theater, the story will resume with the mid-1980s arrival of young artists like Dwight Yoakam, Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell, Randy Travis and Steve Earle, and the boom years of the 1990s, when the likes of Garth Brooks, Faith Hill and Alan Jackson ruled the charts and dominated the airwaves.
The story will enter the new millennium with new exhibit cases and video screens that reflect the face of country music in the years since the Museum's expanded and modernized facility opened in downtown Nashville's Sobro District in 200l. One case will focus on the contributions of hitmakers like Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban. Another new case will celebrate contemporary bluegrass and Americana artists, ranging from Alison Krauss and Del McCoury to Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale.
The last of the new cases will be reserved for artifacts and videos that reflect contemporary country's latest trends, events and artists. "This gives us the opportunity to collect and preserve country music history as it is being made," Museum Director Kyle Young said. "It will also function to remind some of our younger visitors that their favorite contemporary artists are linked to the sumptuous and vivid history of country music. This revamping of existing exhibit cases and the addition of new exhibits, media, text, graphics and accompanying programs will mean an entirely new experience for our visitors."
Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964. The Museum's mission is the preservation of the history of country and related vernacular music rooted in southern culture. With the same educational mission, the Foundation also operates CMF Records, the Museum's Frist Library and Archive, CMF Press, Historic RCA Studio B, and Hatch Show Print®.
More information about the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is available at www.countrymusichalloffame.org or by calling (615) 416-2001.