Tennessee, 5 places we take you
Nashville music tours start here: country music has a church, a radio show and a strip of bars that never close, and all three are within a few miles of each other on the banks of the Cumberland River.
From $1,8903 tours that go there
Nashville sells itself as Music City, and for once the slogan undersells it. On a single weekend you can sit in the pews of the Ryman Auditorium, watch the Grand Ole Opry go out live on WSM, stand where Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton cut records at RCA Studio B, and hear four bands before midnight on Lower Broadway without paying a cover charge.
Our Nashville days run on two tracks. Mornings go to the history, at the Country Music Hall of Fame and on Music Row with a guide who has worked in the studios. Evenings go to the shows, with seats bought ahead for the Opry or the Ryman and a tour leader who knows which honky-tonk has the best band that night, and when to leave for the Station Inn instead.
3 tours
Nashville and Memphis
Nashville, Memphis
Our most booked trip: three nights of country in Nashville, then down I-40 for rock and roll at Sun, soul at Stax and a night on Beale Street.
From $2,790 per person, double room
See the tourNashville, Muscle Shoals, Memphis, Mississippi Delta and New Orleans
Nashville, Florence, Memphis, Clarksdale, New Orleans
Ten days down the road from Nashville to New Orleans, with the studios of Muscle Shoals, Sun and Stax, two nights in the Delta and three in the jazz city at the end.
From $4,890 per person, double room
See the tourNashville
Nashville
A long weekend that does Nashville properly: the Opry live, a backstage morning at the Ryman, Studio B, and a songwriter night away from Broadway.
From $1,890 per person, double room
See the tourPrices per person sharing a double room; day tours per person. Flights to the start city are optional and priced on each tour.
The places
Thomas Ryman, a riverboat captain, built the hall in 1892 as a tabernacle for revival meetings, and the pews are still church pews. From 1943 to 1974 it was home to the Grand Ole Opry, and the curved wooden balcony has heard Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash.
The acoustics are why artists of every genre still ask to play here. On our tours you take the daytime backstage tour and come back at night for a concert, usually in the main floor pews or the front of the Confederate Gallery, which is what the balcony is still called on the tickets.
Tours that visit Ryman Auditorium
Five blocks of Broadway between the river and the Ryman hold more live music than most American cities. Bands play from ten in the morning to two at night, in shifts of four hours, for tips alone. Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, painted purple, is the most famous: its back door opens onto the alley across from the Ryman, and Opry singers used to slip over between sets.
The newer bars carry singers' names and rooftop decks. Our tour leaders steer you to the old rooms with the best house bands, such as Robert's Western World, where the steel guitar still leads.
Tours that visit Lower Broadway
The Opry is a radio show first. It has gone out live on WSM every week since 1925, and it still runs like one: eight or nine acts, two or three songs each, an announcer reading the ads between them. The show moved to the Opry House, out by the Cumberland River east of downtown, in 1974.
A six-foot circle of maple cut from the Ryman stage was set into the new stage, and singers still step onto it for their turn. We book seats for a Friday, Saturday or Tuesday show, and add the backstage tour past the dressing rooms when the schedule allows.
Tours that visit Grand Ole Opry House
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Avenues South are lined with the small houses and low offices of publishers, labels and studios. This is where the Nashville Sound was made in the late 1950s, with string sections and backing singers smoothing out the hillbilly edges.
RCA Studio B, opened in 1957, is the room where Elvis Presley recorded more than 200 songs and Dolly Parton cut her early hits. The lights are set the way Elvis liked them at night. Visitors can stand at the original microphone positions, and the guide plays the tapes back through the old console.
Tours that visit Music Row and RCA Studio B
The museum takes up most of a block downtown, and the building's windows are shaped like piano keys from the street. Inside, the permanent exhibit runs from fiddle records of the 1920s to the stadium acts of today, with Elvis Presley's gold Cadillac, Webb Pierce's car with pistols for door handles, and hundreds of stage outfits.
The rotunda at the top holds the bronze plaques of the members under the words of an old gospel song. Give it at least three hours; our groups usually have the morning here with a guide and the afternoon free nearby.
Tours that visit Country Music Hall of Fame
Getting around
Broadway, the Ryman, the Hall of Fame and Printers Alley are all within a ten-minute walk of our downtown hotel.
For the Opry House, Music Row, the Station Inn and the Bluebird Cafe, which are a short drive out.
Nashville International is 20 minutes from downtown. The pickup on the tour dates is included.
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Tour vanAmtrak trainRiverboatShort flight Map tiles: © Esri, HERE, Garmin © OpenStreetMap contributors. Lines join the stops in tour order in simplified form.
What is included
Best time to visit
Spring and autumn are warm without the July heat. June brings the big CMA Fest crowds and higher hotel prices; December has holiday shows at the Ryman and the Opry.
At a glance
Questions
No. The honky-tonks on Lower Broadway have no cover charge for most of the day and night. The bands play for tips, so bring some small bills for the jar.
They are two buildings. The Opry show moved from the Ryman to the Opry House in 1974, and still returns to the Ryman for some winter shows. Our Nashville tours include a show at one or the other, depending on the schedule.
Seats at the Bluebird are released online a week ahead and go in minutes. We try for every group and add it when we get them; otherwise your tour leader takes you to another songwriter night.
As late as you like. The program show ends by about eleven, and your tour leader stays on Broadway with anyone who wants more.
It is the easiest place to start: walkable, full of music at every hour, and a short drive from Memphis and Muscle Shoals for a longer trip.
Nearby
Beale Street, Sun Studio, Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Graceland
4 toursFrom $2,290Explore
FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Florence, Tuscumbia
2 toursFrom $295Explore
Sixth Street and Red River, South Congress and the Continental Club, ACL Live at the Moody Theater, Lady Bird Lake and the Congress Avenue Bridge
2 toursFrom $2,290Explore
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