In March of 1983, WSM launched The Nashville Network, TNN for short. It was an entire television network devoted to country music and programming, and largely produced at Gaslight Studios at Opryland USA. Today we look at how televisions show like Hee Haw, and a phenomenon called “The Rural Purge” made all of this possible. We also look at how Fan Fair, a country music fan convention and festival, grew exponentially throughout the decade that brought us The Goonies and Baby Jessica.
Up Next in Season 1
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Music City Tales from the 1980s: Meet...
This week we embark on a two part look at Lower Broad; starting with how the area went from being the sort of place most folks didn’t engage with after dark to becoming a budding tourist destination.
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Music City Tales… Companion: Legalizi...
We are in the middle of a miniseries called Music City Tales From the 1980s, and this is a companion episode that goes deeper into some of the stuff we covered in last week’s exploration of Lower Broad. Next week we’ll run part two of that episode, but for now we’re going to talk a bit about sex ...
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Lower Broad and the Ascendance of the...
By the second half of the Reagan Decade, Lower Broad was on its way to becoming a tourist destination. An impressive ascent, considering it was more or less a war zone. How did it do it? It replaced “low class” drunks with “high class” ones through investment, selective enforcement, and heavy pol...
