Country Music Hall of Fame celebrates 50 years

NASHVILLE — Kyle Young’s first day of work was Apr. 30, 1976. The 22-year-old had answered a newspaper ad seeking ticket takers for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on Music Row. The pay was $2.15 an hour, and he’d get to be surrounded by music all day.

“It seemed like a great way to spend the summer,” Young said.

Nearly 41 years later, Young still works at the Hall of Fame, though he left the ticket counter behind long ago. He has held the position of chief executive officer for nearly two decades. During his tenure, he’s guided the institution through crosstown relocation, recession, flood and a $100 million expansion. On April 1, he’ll welcome visitors to the museum’s 50th anniversary celebration.

For the last two years, the museum, now located at the epicenter of America's "It City," has welcomed more than 1 million visitors annually. Most are tourists; some are musicologists and historians conducting research in the extensive archives, some are students on field trips and some are legends.

“I’ve always loved this place,” said singer-songwriter John Prine while standing in the museum's ACM Gallery. “I’d go over to the old (location) before they moved over here. Every time somebody comes to visit, they’re my excuse to go back to the Country Music Hall of Fame again.”

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Prine is one of two dozen artists featured in the museum’s latest exhibit, “American Currents: The Music of 2016.” The exhibit takes what Young describes as a “big tent” view of country music: “We approach the subject matter very democratically. We’re reporters (and) it’s important to report broadly.”

Display cases dedicated to mainstream stars like Florida Georgia Line and Maren Morris sit alongside instruments and awards belonging to Americana singer-songwriter Jason Isbell and bluegrass band the Earls of Leicester. There’s room to celebrate both tradition and innovation.

After the Country Music Hall of Fame opened in 1967, a Tennessean article proclaimed it the “most sophisticated barn in Nashville.” The $500,000 building, its central barn shape a nod to country music's rural roots, had taken six years to plan. At approximately 33,000 square feet, it was less than one-tenth of the museum’s current size.

“It was immediately successful as a tourist destination,” said Bill Ivey, who served as the museum’s executive director from 1971 until 1998. "There was close to a decade in which the business model worked well because there was very little competition around country music tourism ... it was before the Rust Belt sort of collapsed as a source of visitors. From then on, it became like any other cultural nonprofit: We had to worry about our budget."

The museum was accredited by the American Alliance of Museums in 1987, an important step for its credibility as a research center.

"There was always a lot of research going on," Young said.

The archives and library were located in the basement, but the collection outgrew the storage space. In the museum itself, "we didn't have the room to do what we wanted to do," he added

It was time to move.

Expansion in 2014

In June 1999, contemporary country stars and legends alike attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new museum.

“I look at footage from that day, and I think, ‘The audacity,’" Young said. "Here we are in a dusty parking lot making all of these speeches about who we’re going to be and what we’re going to be ... what were we thinking? There was no way to stop and think even for a minute that moving downtown was not exactly the right thing to do.”

The new location opened with great fanfare in the spring of 2001. But for several years, things weren't so celebratory behind the scenes.

“There were times in which we were paying a lot of attention to how many people would come through the museum on the weekend to make sure that we would be OK to cover payroll,” Young said. "But there was steady growth ... we knew we were on the right track."

A 2010 flood caused several million dollars worth of damage to the Ford Theater and the Rotunda, where the plaques depicting each Hall of Fame member are displayed, but the museum quickly bounced back.

The following year, a campaign was launched to fund a $100 million, 210,000-square-foot expansion that would more than double the Hall of Fame’s size and incorporate the Omni Hotel. The museum celebrated the grand opening of the expansion in 2014.

“Now, it's the institution that Kyle and I used to sit around thinking about," Ivey said. "We'd say, 'One day we'll be the biggest thing in tourism and the biggest thing in country music research. We'll be the gatekeepers for anybody who wants to know anything about country music past and present.’ Then, we'd have another drink and laugh."

The two biggest gambles of Young's career, the relocation and expansion, have paid off.

"For the first time since I've been here," he said, "we are financially stable. Financial stability means we're not looking over our shoulder, and that means we can approach the mission in a broader, more creative way."

While some use a landmark anniversary to look back, he prefers to look forward. In the coming years, he wants to expand the museum’s educational programming. Another priority: digitizing as many of the archive’s 2.5 million artifacts as possible and making them available to the public.

"The collection is still the heart of the place. That informs everything we do," Young said. “We’re caretakers of an important part of this country’s culture. That’s our mission. The wondrous thing about this museum is that it’s always generating new opportunities. We’re not done by a long shot.”

Anniversary event

On April 1, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will celebrate its anniversary with a full slate of programs.

On that day only, ticket prices will roll back to $1.50, the same price visitors paid on the museum’s opening day in 1967.

The first 5,000 guests through the museum on Saturday will receive a complimentary Hatch Show Print commemorative poster. Visitors will be able to use one of Hatch's presses to add an extra color to their poster.

9:30 a.m. CT – Bluegrass duo Dailey and Vincent will perform, followed by a welcome message from museum CEO Kyle Young in the conservatory.

10:15 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. – Virtuosic multi-instrumentalist Rory Hoffman and his trio will perform two sets in the museum conservatory.

11:30 a.m. – The Ford Theater will host a Songwriter Session with Sonny Curtis, who wrote hits like “I Fought the Law” and the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song, “Love is All Around.” Program passes will be required to attend this event.

2 p.m. - In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the museum’s “Poets and Prophets” series, Buzz Cason (“Everlasting Love”), Dallas Frazier (“Elvira,”) Dickey Lee (“She Thinks I Still Care”) and Dan Penn (“Do Right Woman, Do Right Man”) will perform in the CMA Theater. This program is being held in collaboration with Tin Pan South.