Country Music Hall Of Fame Exhibits Honor Trisha Yearwood, Sam Phillips

Trisha Yearwood Exhibit Opens July 3

The girl who used to give tours at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will now have her own exhibit there, when Trisha Yearwood: The Song Remembers When, opens July 3. The new exhibit will chronicle Yearwood’s upbringing and career from her early days as a Belmont student, tour guide at the Hall of Fame, and receptionist at a record label to her hit-making years as an award-winning recording artist and beyond.

Among the items that will be featured in the new exhibit are her Grammys, ACM, and CMA Awards, her high school yearbook, a letter from Johnny Cash praising her talent and encouraging her, a receipt from her first demo in 1983, and the wedding gown she wore to wed Garth Brooks in 2005.

“It’s such a thrill to see my life and career milestones displayed in an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, from the first guitar I ever played to the dress I wore to the Grammys on the night I won Best Female Country Vocal Performance for ‘How Do I Live.’ I’m so happy to be able to share these memories with my country music family,” said Yearwood. “This special exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is truly an honor.”

Special events held in conjunction with the exhibit include a July 11 Songwriter Session with Gary Harrison, who penned several hits for Yearwood including “Everybody Knows,” and a July 12 screening of two short films, A Portrait of Trisha Yearwood, which illustrates the singer’s rise to stardom during the early 1990s, and Full Access: On Tour with Trisha Yearwood, featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Yearwood on tour. Additional programming will include a Songwriter Session with Kim Richey, who wrote several songs for Yearwood, including the No. 1 hit “Believe Me Baby (I Lied)” on Sept. 5. On Oct. 10, veteran producer Garth Fundis, who produced Yearwood’s record-breaking debut album in 1991, will be featured in the Music Masters series, a multimedia interview program in the museum’s Ford Theater.

Sam Phillips Exhibit Opens Aug. 28

The Hall of Fame will also feature a new exhibition on the career of Sam Phillips opening Aug. 28. Flyin’ Saucers Rock & Roll: The Cosmic Genius of Sam Phillips will give an in-depth look at Phillips and the impact of the music he captured on songs like Presley’s “That’s All Right” and Johnny Cash’s “I Walk The Line.”

The exhibit is co-curated by Elvis Presley biographer Peter Guralnick, author of the upcoming biography Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll. 

“Country Music Hall of Fame member Sam Phillips not only was instrumental in the careers of fellow Hall of Famers Johnny Cash, Cowboy Jack Clement, and Elvis Presley,” said museum CEO Kyle Young. “He broke the music worldwide open with records that changed the way America, and later the world, thought about popular music. We are thrilled to shine a spotlight on Phillips’s incredible career and on the continued impact his work has across musical genres.”

The exhibit will be accompanied by a companion catalog that will include dozens of archival photos and color images of many of the artifacts in the exhibit. The book will be available in the museum store and online at countrymusichalloffame.org.