Country Music Hall of Fame Museum

About

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum grew out of the Country Music Foundation, incorporated in Tennessee in 1964 to preserve the genre's heritage, and celebrated its grand opening on April 1, 1967. The museum relocated to a new building in downtown Nashville in May 2001, and a roughly $100 million expansion in 2014 brought the facility to 350,000 square feet. Designed by Nashville's Tuck-Hinton Architectural Firm, with Seab Tuck as project architect, the building forms the shape of a bass clef when viewed from above. It now stands at 222 Rep. John Lewis Way South in Nashville. The collection includes roughly 250,000 audio recordings, 500,000 photographs, and more than 900 instruments, making it one of the most extensive music collections in the world. Inductees are chosen each year by a panel of industry executives assembled by the Country Music Association. Among the museum's notable holdings are Elvis Presley's 1960 "Solid Gold" Cadillac limousine, Maybelle Carter's Gibson L-5 guitar, and Bill Monroe's mandolin.