Tennessee: A Musical Menagerie

Midsize music venues are more intimate than a stadium or megafestival, but still large enough to attract big names – and two brand-new ones have opened. 

In February 2025, Kacey Musgraves inaugurated The Pinnacle, which has a capacity of 4,500. Located just north of the downtown Nashville core, it’s the cornerstone of a new development called Nashville Yards. 

Uptown Memphis is the site of a similarly sized venue. Slated to open in spring 2026, Grind City Amp is an outdoor amphitheater overlooking the river co-owned by the local Grind City Brewing Company, which also sponsors the Grind City Music Festival.

2025 marked 100 years of the legendary B.B. King, but there’s still plenty of opportunities to celebrate. In Memphis, catch a great show and even better eats at B.B. King’s Blues Club. Afterward, check out the historical marker at WDIA Memphis, the radio station where he got his start, or snap a photo with his mural on Lamar Avenue.

At the height of her fame, country sensation Loretta Lynn bought 3,500 acres about 70 miles from Nashville. The large purchase included the entire settlement of Hurricane Mills. Now you can tour her house, camp on the grounds or ride horses, Jeeps and ATVs on the trails.

Ninety minutes farther toward Memphis brings you to the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville, which houses the Tina Turner Museum and the former home of blues singer “Sleepy” John Estes. Another hour west, you’re at the wrought-iron gates of the country’s second most-visited home destination, Elvis Presley’s Graceland. And what would a trip to Tennessee be without paying your respects to the queen herself? In Pigeon Forge, pay a visit to the Dolly Parton Experience at Dollywood. The museum takes you through each step in her career with authentic memorabilia, including her original tour bus.

Some music museums honor one genre, like Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis. Here, you can experience the roots of soul, replicas of Stax’s first studio and the legendary Wall of Sound, which features every album and single released by Stax and its affiliates from 1957 to 1975.

Speaking of genres, you can learn about many more of them in other parts of the state. Nashville is home to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the National Museum of African American Music, and the Museum of Christian and Gospel Music.

But don’t overlook smaller “scene” museums like Nashville’s Jefferson Street Sound Museum. Open one day a week, it celebrates the city’s R&B scene, where Jimi Hendrix and many others got their start. Or, go back to where country music began at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol.

“Big ears” is music industry shorthand for a person with broad, eclectic taste. If that’s you, Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival is curated to satisfy your inquisitiveness. Or, perhaps the city's one-day Southern Skies Music and Whiskey Festival at World's Fair Park strikes your fancy. Folkier, rootsier and farther east, Bristol hosts the Rhythm & Roots Reunion. If bluegrass is your jam, the IBMA World of Bluegrass Festival is held in Chattanooga each September. In Nashville, established favorites like CMA Fest, AMERICANAFEST and Tin Pan South attract big headliners. Outside the city, Franklin’s Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival and Manchester’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival show off major musical acts and sweeping views of the state’s outdoor landscape.

If you want to attend a real Nashville Music Row recording session, Imagine Recordings will accommodate you. Go a step further and make a record at the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, plus stand exactly where Elvis stood when he made his first recordings. 

Memphis recording studio/ label owner John King donated tens of thousands of records and several thousand music books to form the Memphis Listening Lab. Nothing is for sale (except a little merch), and nothing is for lending out. It’s all for your listening enjoyment. Hear your personal picks on high-end, Memphis-made Eggleston Works speakers. Located in Crosstown Concourse, Memphis Listening Lab hosts musicians, producers and journalists to talk about and play the music they created or love.

Do you miss the era of show posters plastered on walls? Hatch Show Print, located within the Country Music Hall of Fame®, has been a working letterpress print shop since 1879. Hatch printed posters for every major country star, and you can watch the original presses make new posters and reproductions of classics. 

Some venues even host live radio shows that you can attend, including the legendary Grand Ole Opry in Nashville (which just celebrated 100 years in 2025), Sutton Ole Time Music Hour in Granville and the WDVX Blue Plate Special®, hosted right inside the Visit Knoxville Visitor Center.

Broadway shows regularly come through Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga on national tours, but there’s more to Tennessee’s performing arts scene. Check out improv, works in development or revivals at community theaters across the state. Catch a show at places like Playhouse on the Square, the cornerstone of Memphis’ thriving midtown arts scene; Cumberland County Playhouse, which has brought professional actors to Crossville for more than 60 years; or Jonesborough’s newly restored Jackson Theatre.

Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center has a varied calendar and it’s definitely worth a visit to bask in the world-class acoustics. Music never sounded richer or truer. In Chattanooga, the Tivoli Theatre has been known as the “jewel of the South” for over 80 years.

Sometimes, a theater can be a destination in itself. Paramount Bristol is right on the Tennessee border. Like many historic theaters (Nashville’s Ryman, Knoxville’s Bijou and Tennessee Theatre, Memphis’ Orpheum, Crossville’s Palace Theatre and the Franklin Theatre in Franklin, to name a few), the Paramount Theatre is revitalized and hosting a full calendar of events. All have become cornerstones of revived arts scenes. Lincoln Theatre in Fayetteville on the historic downtown square has been showing first-run movies since 1951.

Eighty miles from Nashville and 50 from Chattanooga, near the base of Monteagle Mountain, sits Tennessee’s oldest performance space. How old? More than 200 million years. Set in a cave system, The Caverns in Pelham hosts PBS’ “Caverns Sessions” (formerly “Bluegrass Underground”) as part of a varied year-round schedule. The cave’s temperature is always around 59 degrees, and with seating limited to 750, all sight lines are excellent.

Stretch your legs while learning something new with a guided or self-guided music walking tour. Find a tour specific to your interest, from Walkin’ Nashville’s Music City Legends Tour, focusing on the golden age of country music, to Backbeat Tours’ Memphis Mojo Tour, a high-energy trek that covers rock ’n’ roll, blues and soul. Check on guided tours closer to your arrival date, as availability varies. Self-guided tours, like Nashville’s Historic Music Row tour or Knoxville’s Cradle of Country Music tour, are available year-round.