Hitting the high note

COUNTRY music's famous names rock on at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and get Ray Chesterton's toes tapping.

Fame game ... The 'keyboard' exterior of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Picture: Ed Rode Photography

THE question is inescapable. Why is Elvis Presley's bronze plaque in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville alongside such giants of the industry as Hank Williams?

The answer is simple. Presley began as a country singer with Sun Records in 1954, and he is regarded as a pioneer.

"In a sense, he had a more powerful and lasting impact on country music than pre-eminent stars such as Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers," the Hall of Fame says.

"Until Presley's arrival, country music had been considered regional. He gave a younger generation of country musicians potential access to broader media exposure than their predecessors enjoyed."

Illustrating the fusion of styles, Presley, Cash, the Everly Brothers and Hank Williams are among 11 in both the Country and Rock 'n' Roll halls of fame.

The Country Hall of Fame stretches across the Nashville skyline in a distinctive style that carries more symbolism than The Da Vinci Code.

Alternating two-storey windows and white walls resemble the keys on a huge piano. A miniature model of a radio station antenna sits on a rotunda of discs representing CDs.

It's a streamlined showcase of 43,000sqm for the crown jewels of American Country Music history and crammed with thousands of exhibits from a constantly rotating total of 800,000 items in storage.

It's the resting place of the spirit of the men and women who created a musical style from songs initially sung on remote mountain farms more than a century ago. They created a multi-billion-dollar industry that now services millions of fans around the world.

Hall of Fame administrators say more than 300,000 people a year come to tread the pathways through a century of country-music history.

"They come from all over America, and we get large international groups coming through as well," they say.

The two most popular displays at the moment are tributes to Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, although it's a transitory fame, dependent on news. Cash is very popular thanks to the movie Walk The Line, our guide tells us.

Walk The Line is the acclaimed biography of Cash's rise from the son of dirt-poor Arkansas cotton pickers to stardom, a near-fatal, long-term addiction to amphetamines and re-emergence, thanks to his wife June Carter's dedication, as an icon.

The film has now been released on DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Ray Charles' exhibit is titled I Can't Stop Loving You, the name of the massive crossover hit he had in the 1960s when his albums Modern Sounds in Country Music Vols 1 and 2 were revolutionary.

"When Ray did I Can't Stop Loving You country music was heard by more people than ever before," says Willie Nelson.

Being elected to the Hall of Fame and being awarded a personalised bronze plaque with a thumbnail sketch of their achievements, is a cherished goal for artists.

"The greatest public honour I ever received, to my mind anyway, was being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980," Cash said.

"I was the first living person to be so honoured.

"I've been given all kinds of awards in my career before and after 1980, including some big ones – Grammys, Honours and the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame – but nothing will ever beat Country Music's Hall of Fame."

Wandering through the Hall of Fame and museum is a modern day trip through yesterday's and current glories.

Artifacts of pioneer Ernest Tubb are there along with those of Dolly Parton, Don Gibson, Patsy Cline and Bob Dylan.

Dylan's there because of his recordings with Cash in the 1960s that, like Charles, helped break down arbitrarily imposed definitions of what was country music. And state-of-the-art digital devices bring to life decades-old tape and film. The dozens of million-selling songs have buttons that access the original recordings on a wall of gold.

Telephone links with recorded anecdotes from such noted songwriters as Tom T. Hall, Dolly Parton and Don Gibson tell of how their original ideas came about.

Other writers have donated the actual pieces of paper on which they scrawled their lyrics, complete with crossed-out words in Hank Williams' Your Cheatin' Heart.

The first Hall of Fame inductees in 1961 were Jimmie Rodgers (the Singing Brakeman during the Depression years), Fred Rose, and Williams.

Standards are high. In 1963 none of the nominees got enough votes to be elected.

The bronze plaques with life-like faces of the inductee, are on the wall of a circular room designed like King Arthur's round table to avoid ranking them numerically.

The writer travelled courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment which has released Walk The Line on DVD.

FACT FILE

Getting there: Qantas, United Airlines or Air New Zealand to Los Angeles. American Airlines to Nashville (about 5 hours).

See it: The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is at 222 Fifth Ave South, in Nashville. Open 9-5 daily March to December. $22 adult, $12 child, under 6 free.

Stay: The Hermitage, 231 Sixth Ave North, and Loews Vanderbilt Hotel, 2100 West End Ave.

Eat: SoBro at Museum. Value: Papa Joe's Pizza.

Don't miss: Stones River National Battlefield. General Jackson Showboat Mississippi dinner cruise. Ryman Theatre, original home of Grand Ole Opry.

The Sunday Telegraph