BR549, Greg Garing, Paul Burch & the WPA Ball Club, and R.B. Morris celebrate the twentieth anniversary of a musical revival in the honky-tonks of Nashville’s Lower Broadway with a concert in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater.

To begin the program, held on September 20, 2014, the Museum’s Michael Gray offers some history about the bars on Lower Broadway, recalling a time when the Ryman Auditorium still staged the Grand Ole Opry. He introduces Greg Garing, who performs Hank Williams’ “Tennessee Border,” Wanda Jackson’s “Am I Even a Memory,” and the blues song “Deep Elem Blues.”

Paul Burch & the WPA Ball Club deliver Kay Starr and Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Ocean of Tears,” and their own “Harper’s Ferry Blues” and “Gunter Hotel Blues.” R.B. Morris sings “Old Copper Penny,” “Ridin’ With O’Hanlon,” and “Take That Ride.”

BR549, which held a heralded residency at Robert’s Western World, reunite to play “Bettie Bettie,” “Knoxville Girl,” “Out of Habit,” “Better Than This,” “Me ’n’ Opie (Down by the Duck Pond),” and “Even If It’s Wrong.” The lineup includes Chuck Mead and Gary Bennett on vocals and guitar, “Smilin’” Jay McDowell on upright bass, “Hawk” Shaw Wilson on drums, and Don Herron on fiddle and steel guitar. All the guests gather for the finale, a rendition of Mel Tillis’s “Honky Tonk Song.”

During the event, photographer Jim Harrington and author David Eason give remarks about their experiences in the Lower Broad scene. The program is held in conjunction with the Americana Music Festival and Conference.

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