Today, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum unveiled new, free-to-access online exhibitions: Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter and Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City. These multimedia exhibits are the first designed exclusively for the museum’s website.

“As a national history museum and global cultural institution, we are charged to consistently expand access to the museum’s collection and the interpretive work of our curators and historians, while advancing the documentation and preservation of American musical history,” said museum CEO Kyle Young.  “These online exhibitions, made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, enabled the museum to create this novel exhibit platform. With it, we are not only able to reshare the story of the artists and musicians who helped to broaden Nashville’s reputation as a true Music City, but also to tell a new story, that of the clothiers who created unmistakable designs that are now synonymous with country music.”

Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter

Curated specifically for an online audience, Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter draws from the museum’s exhibit galleries and permanent collection to explore the artistry of Western-wear designers, often known as “rodeo tailors,” whose couture designs helped to create the indelible “rhinestone cowboy” image for country music.

The exhibition examines the emergence of this unique look in the 1940s and 1950s, largely from the tailor shops of Eastern European Jewish immigrants – who carved a successful niche for themselves by embracing America’s fascination with cowboy culture and Western imagery. Viewers will learn how the creative vision of the early designers – including "Rodeo Ben” Lichtenstein, Nathan Turk and Nudie Cohn, who were all Eastern European Jewish immigrants – endures today, especially through Cohn’s former apprentices Manuel Cuevas and Jaime Castaneda, each of whom moved from Mexico to Los Angeles.

The exhibit also looks at today’s contemporary clothiers – including Union Western’s Jerry Atwood, Fort Lonesome’s Kathie Sever, and “Katy K” Kattelman – who continue to draw both inspiration from Cohn, Turk, Lichtenstein and Cuevas’s expressions of cowboy style. Today’s designers’ modern spins on classic Nudie suits and vintage stage costumes have been spotted on a wide range of recording artists including Charley Crockett, Jenny Lewis, Post Malone, Midland, Margo Price and Lil Nas X.

The exhibit includes detailed color photographs of stage wear, tools of the trade and historical photographs and video. Artifacts include:

A two-tone, wool gabardine outfit, embellished with chain-stitch embroidered flowers, contoured yoke, scalloped shotgun cuffs, whipcord piping and “V” smile pockets with arrowhead stitching, designed by Rodeo Ben for singer and guitarist Schuyler “Sky” Snow of the duo Jerry & Sky

A three-piece cowgirl costume designed by Nathan Turk for Rose Maddox, lead singer in her family band, the Maddox Brothers & Rose

Country Music Hall of Fame member Hank Thompson’s boots, featuring a fantastical scene commemorating his career-launching 1948 hit “Humpty Dumpty Heart,” created by Nudie Cohn’s master embroiderer Viola Grae

A Manuel jacket, with fleur-de-lys embroidery and rhinestones, designed for Roseanne Cash

A Cohn-inspired cowgirl costume worn by Country Music Hall of Fame member Patsy Cline, designed and sewed by her mother, Hilda Hensley

A face covering decorated with rhinestones and appliqué, created by Union Western’s Atwood in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City

Originally presented in the museum’s galleries from 2015 to 2018, Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City has been adapted for an online audience. The exhibit explores Bob Dylan’s Nashville recordings in the 1960s and his impact on the local music industry; the role of Country Music Hall of Fame member Johnny Cash’s groundbreaking television show in expanding the perception of Nashville as a music center welcoming to all; and the importance of the community of ace session musicians, known as the “Nashville Cats.” The Nashville Cats, whose members included Kenny Buttrey, Lloyd Green, Country Music Hall of Fame members Charlie Daniels, Charlie McCoy, Jerry Reed and Hargus “Pig” Robbins and others, are featured on many significant recordings of the late 1960s and 1970s, including Neil Young’s Harvest, Leonard Cohen’s Songs from a Room, the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Linda Ronstadt’s Silk Purse and multiple Dylan albums. 

As a result of Nashville’s changing image, more and more artists chose to record there. In addition, there was a new blending of musical genres that further influenced musicians in Nashville and beyond. This is evident today as Nashville’s music community includes internationally recognized rockers, pop hitmakers and singer-songwriters of every genre, many drawing inspiration from the groundbreaking work of Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats, who expanded the image and meaning of Music City USA.

Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City features vintage clips from The Johnny Cash Show, rare archival footage and images of artifacts including:

The handwritten manuscript for “Wanted Man,” a song Dylan wrote for Cash in Nashville, which Cash recorded for his 1969 album Johnny Cash at San Quentin

A mahogany 1949 Martin 00-17 that Dylan used in the early 1960s

Lloyd Green’s Sho-Bud pedal steel guitar, used on the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo and other classic recordings

Norbert Putnam’s Fender Precision bass, used on recordings by Linda Ronstadt (“Long Long Time”), Tony Joe White (“Polk Salad Annie”), Joan Baez and Country Music Hall of Fame members Kris Kristofferson and Elvis Presley

Cash’s Eaves Costume Company suit, which he wore on his network TV series The Johnny Cash Show

In support of these online exhibitions, the museum will offer a variety of educational programming, including a collaboration with Nashville Fashion Week. Details will be added to our website once available.

Both online exhibitions are made possible by a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) CARES grant award. With NEH funding, the museum built a platform to support these and future online exhibits. In addition, the grant award underwrote the photography of more than 300 collections objects for addition to the museum’s digital archive.

To view these exhibits and for additional information, visit www.CountryMusicHallofFame.org

Today, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum announced that Country Music Hall of Fame member Roy Acuff’s cherished fiddle has been added to the museum’s permanent collection. On view to the public today—just in time to celebrate our nation’s independence—Acuff’s fiddle debuts in a spotlight exhibit in the museum’s upper-level galleries.

The fiddle, which was found and given to Acuff by American soldiers stationed in Germany at the end of World War II, was donated to the museum by Vince Gill. Gill is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the president of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Board of Officers and Trustees.

The instrument and its story exemplify the popularity of country music—and Acuff in particular—during the Second World War. Then a major star of the Grand Ole Opry and a best-selling Columbia recording artist, Acuff enjoyed broad appeal in country music at the time, serving as an important bridge from the stringband era to the modern era of star singers backed by bands.

“Roy Acuff’s prized fiddle is an important instrument with a remarkable story,” said Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young. “Because of Vince Gill’s generosity, the museum is now the permanent steward of an instrument that illustrates Roy Acuff’s cultural significance and the growth of country music during a period of great expansion for the genre. This instrument will be used to educate generations of fans and scholars about the music and career of Acuff, who served as an ambassador for country music as the face of the Grand Ole Opry and a regular USO performer, among many other accomplishments."

The fiddle was acquired this year by Vince Gill, who became friends with Acuff when Gill began appearing on the Opry in the late 1980s. Gill’s affection and respect for Acuff moved him to donate the fiddle to the museum to add to its permanent collection.

“It felt important to me that the great Roy Acuff’s fiddle join the ranks of other revered instruments in the museum’s permanent collection—including Maybelle Carter’s 1928 Gibson L-5 guitar and Bill Monroe’s 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolin,” said Gill. “The fiddle was given to Acuff by soldiers during a time of war because of how much he meant to them. He meant a lot to me, too.”

The instrument was built in Germany around 1890 and is a copy of the highly prized violins constructed by Austrian luthier Jacobus Stainer in the 1600s. Discovered in a bombed-out music store in Frankfurt, Germany, by soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 348th Engineer Combat Battalion in the waning days of World War II, the fiddle was sent to Acuff, their favorite country music performer, as a show of appreciation. Liking the tone, Acuff made it his primary fiddle for many years.

Acuff (1903-1992) was a singer, fiddle player, bandleader, songwriter, music executive and Grand Ole Opry favorite. He became famous as the host and headlining star of the “Prince Albert Show,” the NBC radio network segment of the Grand Ole Opry that began airing in 1939, and he remained the face of the Grand Ole Opry until his death. Acuff’s star power among U.S. servicemen and women was proven when he prevailed over pop crooner Frank Sinatra in a popularity contest held on Armed Forces Network’s “Munich Morning Report” near the end of World War II.

Acuff’s remarkable contributions to country music, which included co-founding Nashville’s Acuff-Rose Publications in 1942, led to him becoming the first living member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1962. Items displayed with the fiddle include correspondence from 1969 between Acuff and John E. Johnson Sr.—one of the four servicemen who sent him the fiddle—and a letter signed by Acuff verifying this is the fiddle he personally carried and played on stages around the world and at the Grand Ole Opry.

In addition to the exhibition, the museum produced a brief video sharing the story of the fiddle and how it came into the museum’s permanent collection. The video includes interviews with Vince Gill and museum staff, along with related archival materials. Visitors to the exhibit may use a smart device to scan a QR code, which will take them to the film. The video is also available on the museum’s website here for all to enjoy.

More information about this exhibit can be found at www.CountryMusicHallofFame.org