The Johnny Cash Museum has announced a round of promotions and hirings.

Sydney Robinson

Angela Dodson

Ryan Cowell

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s historic exhibit, Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970, the museum will host a series of events during the month of July. To conclude the month, the museum will join with Music City Roots for a concert at the Factory at Franklin.
Among the artists scheduled to perform on Wednesday, July 30 at 7 p.m. are Levert Allison, the Jimmy Church Band, Clifford Curry, Mac Gayden, Frank Howard, Marion James, Robert Knight, the McCrary Sisters, the Valentines and the Charles Walker Band. General admission tickets are $15 and available at Grimey’s New & Pre-Loved Music or by emailing tickets@musiccityroots.com. The event will also broadcast live on Hippie Radio (94.5 FM).
The museum’s 2 p.m. Sunday programs through July are to include weekly film screenings featuring the television shows The!!!!Beat and Night Train. On Saturday, July 26, an R&B Dance Workshop will be held for families in the Taylor Swift Education Center. Rock-and-roll legend Buzz Cason will additionally be the subject of the museum’s quarterly program series Poets and Prophets on Saturday, July 5 at 1:30 p.m.
The critically acclaimed 2004-05 exhibit celebrated Music City’s contribution to R&B, which influenced Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix and cultivated live music activity on Jefferson Street, as well as spirited entrepreneurs who created the city’s first record companies, and aired WLAC’s rhythm & blues programming across half the United States when most national radio considered the music taboo. From this exhibit came a Grammy-winning CD set by the same name, released by Lost Highway.
Programs hosted at the museum are included with museum admission and are free to museum members.
By: Laura Hostelley

With so many Country music fans in one place, CMA Music Festival presented a prime opportunity to conduct research with this important consumer group.
“Country music is reaching a broader and more diverse audience than ever and we believe these shifts have an impact on our attendee base,” said Karen Stump, CMA’s Senior Director of Market Research. “Our research among Festival attendees about their motivations and experiences related to our event serves as a vital tool for CMA to continuously deliver a memorable and relevant event for our fans.”
Findings from 2014:

• 50 percent of attendees were attending for the first time (48 percent in 2013)
• Among first-time attendees, 52 percent were visiting Nashville for the first time
• 17 percent of first-time attendees reported they had become a fan of the genre recently (within the past one to five years)
• 76 percent of attendees traveled more than 250 miles
• The average distance traveled to attend the festival is 665 miles
• 96 percent of attendees indicated plans or interest in attending again next year
• 82 percent of attendees posted to social media about their daily experience
 (75 percent to Facebook, 37 percent on Twitter, 46 percent to Instagram)
• 62 percent stated they became a “new” fan of an artist they discovered at the Festival
• 52 percent were under the age of 40 (slightly up from 50 percent last year)
• 48 percent have an annual household income of $75,000 or more

These preliminary numbers are based on CMA’s onsite/in-person surveying of 437 attendees over the four days. Additional research is being conducted and will result in added insights about CMA Music Festival attendees based on input from more than 2,000 patrons.