The Country Music Hall of Fame is a museum at 222 Fifth Avenue South in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Its mission is to document the history of country music and to honor its major figures.
In 1961, the Country Music Association (CMA) announced the creation of the Country Music Hall of Fame. The first three inductees, Jimmie Rodgers, Fred Rose and Hank Williams were announced at a CMA banquet in November. Bronze plaques, with the facial likeness and a thumbnail biography of each new member, were cast in bas relief. They were unveiled on the Grand Ole Opry by Ernest Tubb. These plaques, and those for subsequent Hall of Fame inductees, were displayed in the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville until 1967.
In 1963, the CMA announced that a Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum was to be built on Music Row in Nashville. In that same year, Tennessee chartered the Country Music Foundation (CMF) as a nonprofit, educational organization to operate the museum.
The original Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum opened on Music Row (Sixteenth Avenue and Division Street) on April 1, 1967. Operations of the museum came to include educational programs, the CMF Press and CMF Records, the Country Music Foundation Library (1968), and the historic sites RCA Studio B (1977) and Hatch Show Print (1986).
The Music Row location of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum was closed December 31, 2000. On May 17, 2001, the CMF held the grand opening of its new $37,000,000 facility in downtown Nashville. Featured exhibits include "Sing Me Back Home: A Journey through Country Music", with a collection of original recordings, instruments, costumes, photographs, et cetera, as well as the Hall of Fame Rotunda, which displays the plaques of all the inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
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Last updated: 10-10-2005 01:01:35
