Songwriter Buzz Cason discusses his career and performs during this 2014 Poets and Prophets program, held to mark the tenth anniversary of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s exhibition and Grammy-winning CD, “Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945–1970.”

In 1956, Caso...

Norro Wilson, a leading Nashville record producer and songwriter from the 1970s through the ’90s, talks about his life and career in country music (with a focus on his songwriting) during this 2011 interview, part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s signature interview series, “Poets &...

Carl Perkins wrote and recorded “Blue Suede Shoes” in late 1955, and the following year, it was a million seller for Sam Phillips’s Sun Records. Here, Perkins’s son Stan Perkins, singer Naomi Judd, Perkins’s biographer David McGee, and author Peter Guralnick discuss Perkins’s life and “Blue Suede...

Author Randy Fox explores the history of Nashville blues label Excello Records and its partnership with WLAC-AM and Ernie’s Record Mart in the 1950s. Following a panel discussion, a concert celebrates the label’s soul, gospel, and R&B legacy.

The panelists for this program, held April 6, 2019, a...

Genre-defying artist Brandi Carlile performs a selection of songs with bandmates Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth and discusses her career during this June 2015 program, held at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and moderated by NPR Music's Ann Powers.

Brandi Carlile begins the program w...

Emmylou Harris, members of her famed Hot Band—Hank DeVito, Glen D. Hardin, and John Ware—and producer Brian Ahern come together on stage for this 2016 interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, discussing their musical chemistry and sharing early career memories in support of the exh...

The Nashville Chapter of the Audio Engineering Society honors Stan Dacus, Christian Haselau, Hugh Hickerson, David McKinley, Glenn Meadows, and Billy Sherrill with the AES Nashville Lifetime Achievement Award, created to celebrate Nashville’s pioneers and masters in the audio field.

Held on June...

Drummer Richie Albright played with Waylon Jennings for nearly thirty years, starting in Arizona in the early 1960s and moving with Jennings to Nashville and serving as the Outlaw country icon's "right hand."

Here, Albright visits the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019 for a Nashville...

Jimmy Bowen, an outspoken former recording executive, discusses his long career in Nashville during this two-hour conversation, held at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on April 12, 2014. A producer for Reba McEntire and Hank Williams Jr., he shares his approach to studio work and as an ...

Country music producer Brent Maher discovered and produced mother-daughter duo the Judds, and worked with a long list of other artists within and beyond the genre, including country stars Kathy Mattea, Jo Dee Messina, and Kenny Rogers, soul staples Ray Charles and Gladys Knight, and genre-blendin...

Country artist Travis Tritt, artist and music industry leader Shannon Sanders, and Concord Records president John Burk explore the impact of Ray Charles’s groundbreaking 1962 album “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music” during a 2019 panel discussion at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Mu...

Carlene Carter, Shawn Colvin, Amythyst Kiah, and Maria Muldaur share a conversation with NPR’s Ann Powers, highlighting women who inspire them as musicians and taking turns performing on stage at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Held on September 12, 2019 (during that year’s AmericanaF...

Grammy-winning songwriter Liz Rose—Taylor Swift's go-to co-writer for such early hits as "Tim McGraw," "White Horse," and "You Belong with Me"—recounts her unlikely career journey for the Poets and Prophets series at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

During this interview and performanc...

Bob DiPiero reveals the spark of inspiration that led him to write “American Made,” “Blue Clear Sky,” and other hits during this interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, held on February 5, 2014, as part of the Poets and Prophets series. He also explains how giving guitar lessons i...

This wide-ranging interview, conducted by the Museum’s Michael McCall on December 4, 2013, covers music executive Kay Clary’s life and career in promoting rock, country, and Americana musicians. Clary helped lay the groundwork for Nashville’s Americana music scene, working in public relations and...

In a loving and revealing ninety-minute program, family members and business associates of the late Keith Whitley discuss his special talent, his charismatic but troubled personality, his rise to fame, and his untimely death.

Whitley’s widow, country star Lorrie Morgan, joins former RCA Records...

NPR Music’s Bob Boilen speaks about the inspiration behind his book “Your Song Changed My Life,” joined by singer-songwriter John Paul White, who offers his own formative musical experiences and performs four songs.

Held in conjunction with the year’s AmericanaFest, this September 23, 2016, prog...

Doug Sahm (1941-1999) was a standard bearer for Tex-Mex music and a contemporary and friend of country’s Outlaw movement. During this September 14, 2019, program, marking twenty years since Doug Sahm’s passing, his son Shawn Sahm joins a panel discussion and leads a rousing tribute concert at the...

During this special program, Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and author Rodney Crowell sits down with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Peter Cooper to discuss and perform selections from his album “Texas.”

“Surely I’ve told everything I have to say about Texas and about my upbringi...

Bev Paul traces her career from managing a folk club to leading Sugar Hill Records during this forum, held February 20, 2020, at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and named for one of the Nashville music industry’s most formidable female music industry figures, Louise Scruggs.

On stage,...

“Bye Bye Love,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Love Hurts,” “Rocky Top,” and more—husband-and-wife songwriting team Boudleaux and Felice Bryant made decades of groundbreaking contributions to American music history, and are remembered during this 2019 panel discussion at th...

Songwriter Pat Alger—known for writing hits recorded by Garth Brooks and many others—performs and shares memories from his musical education and career, live in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Ford Theater.

Though Alger contributed significant hits to several artists, he made his big...

Delbert McClinton, three-time Grammy winner and a key figure in blues, R&B, country, and Americana music, visits the Ford Theater to talk with the Museum’s Peter Cooper about journeys in music and to sing four songs.

The Lubbock, Texas, native begins the program by talking about his way of getti...