Printer's Alley

Printer's Alley is a block-long pedestrian passage between Third Avenue North and Fourth Avenue North in downtown Nashville, named for the printing and publishing businesses — newspapers, handbill shops, paper distributors — that occupied its ground floors from the late 19th century onward. When the printing industry consolidated or relocated in the years after World War II, the commercial spaces it left behind were taken over by nightclubs, bars, and entertainment venues. By the early 1950s Printer's Alley had become Nashville's primary after-hours district — the place the city went when the Opry let out and the night still had somewhere to go.

The venues that operated in the alley through the 1950s and 1960s hosted a concentration of talent that predated the Broadway honky-tonk strip as Nashville knew it. Dottie West performed at the Carousel Club regularly before her national breakthrough. Boots Randolph — the saxophonist behind "Yakety Sax" — held long residencies in the alley and became its most enduring figure. Charlie Louvin played here. Chet Atkins, before he became the executive figure who shaped the Nashville Sound from behind the desk at RCA, had played the clubs on this block. The alley operated at the intersection of the recording industry, the Opry world, and the touring circuit in ways that more formal venues could not accommodate — its informality and late hours made it the room where Nashville's music business actually got done.

The Alley's peak was the 1960s. It has declined considerably from that era, though it never fully emptied. A handful of clubs continue to operate, and the street is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The legacy is largely invisible to the tourist who wanders in from Broadway; the buildings show their age and give little away. But the alley represents the part of Nashville's music history that happened in the margins rather than the spotlight, which is often where the most interesting parts of any story are.