Station Inn

The Station Inn opened in 1974 at 402 12th Avenue South in what was then an industrial neighbourhood south of downtown Nashville, conceived from the outset as a dedicated venue for acoustic and bluegrass music. Not a side attraction in a bar but a room where the music was the entire purpose: a low stage, close to the audience, in a building that seats around 150 people with no amplification between the performers and the room. The acoustic quality of the space and the strict understanding that this is a listening room rather than a drinking room with incidental entertainment have made it, over five decades, the finest bluegrass venue in North America.

The list of artists who have performed at the Station Inn with regularity reads like the full history of the genre: Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, David Grisman, Mark O'Connor, Tim O'Brien, Peter Rowan. The Tuesday night format — open jams with rotating performers — became a standing institution in Nashville's acoustic music community and a proving ground for musicians from across the country who come to Nashville specifically to play in this room. The Inn has also served as a recording location, with live albums capturing the particular acoustic quality that is impossible to replicate in a conventional studio.

The neighbourhood around the Station Inn has changed dramatically. The Gulch to the north has been redeveloped into one of Nashville's most upmarket districts; condominiums now surround the block; the industrial texture that gave 12th Avenue its character has largely been erased by construction. The Station Inn remains, still running shows six nights a week, unchanged in spirit and in purpose — the place in Nashville where acoustic music is taken most seriously, and has been since 1974.