Courtesy Museum of Appalachia
Cradle of Country Music Walking Tour
Knoxville, Tenn.
At age seven, Dolly Parton made her debut broadcast on WIVK radio station in Knoxville, Tenn. The rest is history.
To celebrate the town’s connection not only with Dolly Parton, but also with many other influential country musicians, the city offers the Cradle of Country Music Walking Tour. The two-hour walking tour starts at the East Tennessee Historical Society Museum in Knoxville’s historic downtown.
The museum and Gateway Regional Visitors Center hands out brochures with a detailed map of the tour with markers, photos and information about each site. Guided tours can also be arranged for groups to deliver entertaining stories about the town chronicling its history from the pioneer days to the Civil War to modern times.
Nineteen stops on the tour highlight music icons with a relationship to Knoxville, including Hank Williams, the Everly Brothers, Roy Acuff and Elvis Presley with markers depicting scenes or photos about the musicians. The tour won a Pathways 2000 designation to recognize the engaging history presented on the tour.
Knoxville’s music influence ranging from pioneer ballads to rockabilly is covered on the tour, along with other important historical moments of the towns founding and the various leaders who helped settle the town. For a more detailed look at the music and famous figures of Knoxville, many visitors explore the East Tennessee Historical Society Museum before or after the tour to see 8,500 square feet of permanent exhibit space, 500 artifacts, 25 media programs and over 350 recorded voices stating an aspect of their experience in East Tennessee.
www.east-tennesee-history.org
Loretta Lynn Coal Miner’s Daughter Museum
Hurricane Mills, Tenn.
One of the most influential female country music stars decided to set up roots in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. Her ranch there holds the 2001 Coal Miner’s Daughter Museum dedicated to Loretta Lynn’s life and named after her most famous song.
The 18,000-square-foot museum houses numerous memorabilia and awards from her career, including Lynn’s tour bus, mini-theater, personal vehicles and outfits from her concerts. Other exhibits come from her friends in the entertainment industry with photos, mementos and information about the various stars Lynn associated with.
The site also offers tours of her plantation home where she and her husband Oliver Lynn (“Mooney”) lived in after 1971. Also on the site, the Old Grist Mill contains Loretta’s Doll and Fan Museum, as well as the Mill Museum.
Fans can see the sharp contrast between Lynn’s later glamorous lifestyle with her humble beginnings as one of eight children supported by a coal miner in Kentucky at the replica of her family home in Butcher Hollow.
Museum of Appalachia
Clinton, Tenn.
When people worked all day at the coal mines or on farms in Tennessee’s Appalachian Mountains, they needed a way to escape the rigors of everyday life. Music became that outlet, which developed into Appalachian music.
The museum chronicles how what started out as old-time English, Scottish and Irish ballads evolved into Southern Appalachian to modern country music. An exhibit of musical instruments from the area show the ingenuity of these mountain people with handmade instruments including the fiddle, mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, harmonica and musical cowbell.
The museum also features nationally known Appalachian musicians form the area with artifacts and instruments from their collection.
Yet, the museum doesn’t stop at the music of the Appalachian people, but also showcases their artistic talents at the folk art exhibit’s creative collection of wood carvings, paintings and furniture. At the museum’s 60-acre village and farm complex, visitor scan sing along with a daily hymn sing in the log church or watch old-time mountain activity demonstrations, such as quilting, whittling and construction old-time instruments.
One of the best times to go is during the October Tennessee Fall Homecoming when the museum hosts one of the nation’s largest old-time mountain craft and music festicals. Four hundred musicians come to play Southern Appalachian bluegrass, Gospel, folk and old-time country music on five stages.
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Synonymous: Music and Tennessee
