Birthplace of Country Music Ready for Spring with Increased Museum Visitation, Festival Planning, and New Events

As staff at the Birthplace of Country Music(BCM) in Historic Downtown Bristol, Tennessee-Virginia looks ahead to warmer weather, they’re already seeing increased visitation to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum – a welcome sight after a cold winter beset by the pandemic.

“We’re beginning to see visitation picking up at the museum, especially on the weekends,” said BCM Executive Director Leah Ross. “These are visitors from both the community and outside the region – along with a few international travelers. This is very good news, and we hope that number continues to grow with the reassurance that our health and safety practices remain firmly in place.”

Additionally, BCM has completed booking for its annual Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion music festival, slated for September 10-12 of this year, and the full lineup will be announced in coming weeks. Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Tanya Tucker, and Blackberry Smoke have already been announced as headliners for the event.

“We are very hopeful the festival and live music will return to State Street this summer with more vaccinations being made available,” adds Ross. “We are looking into health and safety measures at the festival as well.”

Weekend passes are on sale now at BristolRhythm.com with a convenient payment plan option.

The museum continues to host most of its special programming virtually, including the monthly Virtual Speaker Series and a new series celebrating Women’s History Month in partnership with the Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Initiative (AWHI) throughout March.

Tuesday, March 2 at 7:00 pm EST the museum’s Virtual Speaker Seriescontinues with Black in Appalachia: Uncovering & Sharing Regional Black Narratives featuring William Isom II, Director of Black in Appalachia, and researcher Alona Norwood. They will discuss the public history research and educational components developed in Northeast Tennessee for the project, and share some of the stories and histories that have come out of that work.

Each Wednesday in March, the museum is hosting Smithsonian Affiliations Virtual Scholar Talks, which focus on lesser-known stories of women’s contributions to American history in a variety of areas including activism, aerospace, and the arts. This is part of the Smithsonian’s wider AWHI focus.

Each of these virtual programs are free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required. Visit the Events pages at BirthplaceOfCountryMusic.org to sign up.

Online programming for families and children continues with Museum at Home’s Virtual Story Time series, where museum staff and volunteers read from selected children’s books twice a month. Friday, March 5 at 11:00 a.m. EST the museum will premiere a reading of Swamp Angel by Anne Isaacs and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky, read with permission from Penguin Random House. Friday, March 19 at 11:00 a.m. EST they will post a reading of The Relatives Came by Cynthia Ryland and illustrated by Stephen Gammel with permission from Simon & Schuster. Learning sheets and other related activities are also included. Visit BirthplaceOfCountryMusic.org/virtual-story-time to access the latest videos and activities.

The museum’s Radio Bristol Book Club “meets” on-air Thursday, March 25 at 11:00 a.m. EST to discuss Brandon Hobson’s award-winning book Where the Dead Sit Talking, a Native American coming-of-age story set in rural Oklahoma during the late 1980s. Readers are encouraged to pick up a copy of the book at their local libraries and email their questions or comments to info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org. Listeners may have their messages addressed on the air. Tune in to Radio Bristol at 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, online at ListenRadioBristol.org, or download the free Radio Bristol mobile app.Finally, March 28 is the last date to visit the museum’s special exhibits Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music, 1972-1981, featuring the photographs of Henry Horenstein, A Selection of Hard Rock’s Country Music Memorabilia, and two poster exhibits commemorating the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage.

For more information about everything the Birthplace of Country Music has to offer, visit BirthplaceOfCountryMusic.org.