In the euphony business , there are only four reality - renowned music " midpoint " : New York City , Los Angeles , London andNashville , Tennessee . Which of these thing is not like the other ?
Yet Nashville , with a universe of less than 2 million , beats all three of those global metropoli in terms of per capita music production . According to a2013 report , there are more euphony diligence jobs ( 56,000 ) in Nashville per head than in New York or Los Angeles , and the euphony and entertainment industry contributes $ 10 billion to the Nashville saving . And the numeral has only increased since then .
Nashville is synonymous with land medicine , but it ’s also the uncontested capital of contemporary Christian music andgospel , and its diverse and dynamic music scene has launched the vocation of everyone from Elvis to Jimi Hendrix to Taylor Swift .
So how exactly did this place - back southerly city , far from the hopeful lights and big studios of New York , LA and Chicago , become " Music City , U.S.A. " ?
The story lead off in the 1870s with theFisk Jubilee Singers , a vocal group from Nashville ’s Fisk University compile entirely of freed black hard worker . The Fisk Jubilee Singers adopted the operatic telling style of the day to sing negro spirituals . They were wildly pop and not only toured the United States , but also Europe with their unambiguously American sound .
It was after a concert attended by none other Queen Victoria of Great Britain that Her Highness reportedly addressed the singers and say , " You must come from the music city . "
While it ’s a great story , most medicine historiographer – including the noted documentarian Ken Burns – cogitate it’sprobably apocryphal . That does n’t take away from the fact the Fisk Jubilee Singers helped put Nashville on the melodious function . They were alsoone of the first melodious actsto perform in Ryman Auditorium , a " gospel tabernacle " build in 1892 by riverboat captain Tom Ryman that ’s still Nashville ’s most - dear medicine locale ( more on the Ryman in a second ) .
“We Shield Millions”
Most of the credit for Nashville becoming Music City belongs , funnily enough , to an indemnity society . In 1925 , the National Life and Accident Insurance Company had the clever melodic theme of set in motion a radio station in Nashville to promote its business . They call it WSM for their company shibboleth " We Shield Millions " and they mostly played classical and easy - heed " dinner " euphony . But Saturday night were reserved for theWSM Barn Dance , an evening of live ( and lively ) country medicine .
The Barn Dance broadcast was so popular in Nashville that masses would come business district every Saturday nighttime and herd outside the WSM station to catch a glimpse of the musicians . WSM before long built an auditorium to suit the audience and in 1927 changed the hebdomadary program ’s name to the Grand Ole Opry .
In 1932 , WSM got a firebrand new antenna ( the tallest in North America at the prison term ) and broadcast a 50,000 - watt clear channel signal that attain every home in America coast to coast . The Grand Ole Opry was one of the most popular radio programs of its twenty-four hours , and in 1943 the live music review moved into the Ryman Auditorium , where it would stay for the next 31 years .
Don Cusic , a Nashville - based country music historian and ( not coincidentally ) the Music City Professor of Music Industry History at Belmont University , says that the decade of 1945 to 1955 was the Grand Ole Opry ’s blossom .
" That ’s when it was the station that every country performer want to be , " says Cusic .
Nearly every country and rockabilly headliner of the forties and fifties got their big break play for the Opry on the Ryman microscope stage , including Hank Williams , Johnny Cash , Patsy Cline , George Jones , Dolly Parton , Charley Pride and Elvis . The entire genre of bluegrass medicine was literallyinvented on the Ryman stagein 1945 .
It ’s hard to magnify the charismatic draw of the Grand Ole Opry to country musicians . All the top talent came to Nashville to flirt the Opry and the transcription studio and record recording label follow . The nascent industry pose up show in Nashville ’s Music run-in along 16th and 17th boulevard , home to legendary RCA Studio B , where Elvis recorded 260 songs , including his first issue one striking , " Heartbreak Hotel " in 1956 .
Cusic enunciate that Nashville trumps other Southern music hub like Austin and Atlanta because its vibrant , homegrown creative culture is backed by an equally potent industriousness presence , not just nation , but Christian coeval , gospel , alternate rock and more . He says that Austin is always making a foot race for music capital of the South , but that Austiners detest the business side .
" The medicine business is the medicine , the patronage and the technology all stray together , " pronounce Cusic . " You ca n’t hate the job side because that makes it profitable . "
Musicians who call Nashville household let in Justin Timberlake , Sheryl Crow , Jack White , Paramore , Kings of Leon , Ben Folds and more . And although the Grand Ole Opry moved to a new dwelling house in 1974 , theRyman Auditoriumis still hosting sold - out concerts more than 125 old age later .
