During Musician Spotlights at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, professional recording and touring musicians take the stage to perform and offer insight into their artistry and their instruments, from training and technique to style and inspirations. Each program also includes opportunities for in-person audience members to ask questions.
Scroll down to watch a selection of past Musician Spotlight programs held at the Museum.
Multi-instrumentalist J.D. Wilkes, best known as the front man of American roots band the Legendary Shack Shakers, performs and tells stories about his life in this edition of the Museum’s Musician Spotlight series.
Texas native Wilkes formed the Shack Shakers in Kentucky in the mid-1990s, and ...
Multi-instrumentalist Molly Tuttle—the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Association’s guitar player of the year—performs a selection of original music and classic songs during a Musician Spotlight at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, held April 8, 2018.
Growing up in Calif...
Drummer Eddie Bayers, a member of the 2021 class of the Country Music Hall of Fame, invites several musician friends to join him at the Museum's Ford Theater to help him showcase his playing, which has been featured on more than 150 gold and platinum albums.
During the hour-long program, held Ma...
Ron Block—a recording artist and the banjo player in Alison Krauss & Union Station—entertains the crowd with acoustic songs performed on banjo and guitar, joined by his childhood friend Eric Uglum, during this August 27, 2017, Musician Spotlight at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. He al...
Steve Gibson, the first musical director for the Grand Ole Opry and a guitarist heard on more than 14,000 country recordings, offers insight into the life of a studio musician with fellow guitarist and longtime friend Mike Noble. Part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Musician Spotli...
Buck dancer Thomas Maupin joins his grandson Daniel Rothwell, a champion banjo player, in this lively program held at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on July 15, 2018. In addition to taking questions, the two show how rhythmic steps can affect the energy, tone, and musical resonance of ...
Pianist and arranger Bill Pursell shares the stage with jazz vocalist Staci Griesbach for a Musician Spotlight at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, filmed on September 8, 2019. During the program, Pursell talks about recording his Top Ten 1963 instrumental single, “Our Winter Love,” and ...
During a Musician Spotlight at the Museum, Justin Moses shows his skillful playing on mandolin, guitar, and Dobro, and brings out his wife, fellow multi-instrumentalist Sierra Hull, for more music and audience questions. Both Moses and Hull were recognized in the Museum’s annual exhibition “Ameri...
Keyboardist, producer, and vocalist Joseph Wooten takes the stage on January 19, 2020, at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, performing original songs and a medley from his work with the Steve Miller Band, and sharing his thoughts on how music brings people together.
Wooten, an avowed Te...
In this 2020 Musician Spotlight, bandleader and singer Jimmy Church—a crucial part of Nashville’s R&B community for sixty years—performs a selection of R&B classics and reminisces about a career that had him crossing paths with Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, and other legends.
A Nashv...
During a 2019 Musician Spotlight at the Museum, bluegrass mandolin master Roland White and his musical protégé, Americana singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale, perform a selection of bluegrass songs that span White's distinguished six-decade career. The two also reminisce about White's accomplishment...
Americana artist Lillie Mae performs live and answers audience questions during this December 2018 Musician Spotlight, held at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. She is accompanied by three siblings, sister McKenna Grace Rische on acoustic guitar, sister Scarlett Rische on mandolin, and b...
During this 2019 program, Nashville session musician Curtis McPeake and folk singer-songwriter Andy May share stories and perform old-time and bluegrass tunes including “Leather Britches” and “Sweet Sunny South,” as part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Musician Spotlight series.
B...
Bluegrass performers Dailey & Vincent—named for founding members Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent—share a mix of time-honored country and gospel songs to highlight the tradition of gospel quartet singing during this 2017 Musician Spotlight at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Along with...
Drummer Jerry Pentecost—who plays for Old Crow Medicine Show, Amanda Shires, and Brent Cobb—performs, shares insights into country and Americana drumming, takes questions from the audience, and welcomes well-known friends and collaborators during a Musician Spotlight at the Country Music Hall of ...
Songwriter and mandolin player Sierra Hull performs live and shares insight into her instrument and her influences during a 2017 Musician Spotlight at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
A multi-year International Bluegrass Music Association Mandolin Player of the Year winner, Hull perfor...
Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson performs and discusses the design of his Signature Gretsch White Falcon twelve-string bass during a 2016 Musician Spotlight at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Petersson describes how he originally envisioned a twelve-string bass in the early 1970s, a...
Nashville singer Wendy Moten makes a 2019 visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum for a Musician Spotlight, part of a series designed to highlight the careers and musicianship of accomplished touring and session musicians.
Joined by guitarist Gary Talley, Moten performs a broad mix of...
Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and founding Carolina Chocolate Drops member Dom Flemons—whose 2018 solo album, "Black Cowboys" earned a Grammy nomination and Blues Music Award—takes the stage at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's CMA Theater for a Musician Spotlight.
Over th...
Texas-born, Nashville-based singer and songwriter Stephanie Urbina Jones joins Mariachi Tennessee on stage at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Ford Theater in 2018, sharing country classics interpreted in a variety of mariachi styles—a blend that she dubs "country music with chili pepp...
A brother-sister musical duo from Nashville, Giri and Uma Peters specialize in bluegrass and old-time music, and despite their youth (Giri is fourteen years old here, and Uma is twelve), the two have already made significant music-career inroads.
By their early 2020 Musician Spotlight at the Co...
