CMHoF Features Don McLean Display

Don McLean in performance at The Sage Gateshead

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (CMHoF) opened a new display from award-winning singer-songwriter Don McLean in its long-running, permanent exhibition Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music, beginning Jan. 12. Rotated often, these short-term, informal displays provide a closer look at a particular person or special anniversaries in country music history.

Among the items on display include a 1997 Martin Model D-40DM Don McLean signature acoustic guitar, one of only 71 such guitars that were built. A selection of never-before-seen manuscript pages inclusive of “Vincent” (Starry, Starry Night), which McLean wrote in tribute to Vincent Van Gogh are also part of the display.

“Alan Stoker, Curator of Recorded Sound Collections at the Country Music Hall of Fame, is the son of my friend Gordon Stoker who founded The Jordanaires and who I recorded with for many years,” says McLean. “I have so many long-term and beautiful associations with musicians and music business professionals who have loved me and my music for decades. As a strange musical hybrid of some kind, I was always welcome in Nashville without reservation. I would like to add whatever I can to the storied past of country music as a musical representative of Americana.”

Items on display in the museum’s long-time, permanent exhibition, Sing Me Back Home, are updated frequently. By regularly rotating displays, the museum offers a glimpse into its unique collection of over 2.5 million artifacts, which includes recorded discs; historical photographs; films and videotapes; thousands of posters; books; songbooks; periodicals and sheet music; personal artifacts such as performers’ instruments, costumes and accessories; and more. Recent rotating displays in Sing Me Back Home have featured John Anderson, Bob Moore, Ray Stevens and Keith Whitley.