The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music

While on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, journalist and novelist Paul Hemphill wrote of that pivotal moment in the late sixties when traditional defenders of the hillbilly roots of country music were confronted by the new influences and business realities of pop music. The demimonde of the traditional Nashville venues (Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Robert’s Western World, and the Ryman Auditorium) and first—wave artists (Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, and Lefty Frizzell) are shown coming into first con...