Historic RCA Studio B
Tour Historic RCA Studio B
Tours of Historic RCA Studio B depart 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. daily from the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum. Sunday-Thursday, tours depart every hour beginning at 10:30 a.m. Friday-Saturday, tours depart every half hour beginning at 10:30 a.m. The final tour departs at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $12.95/adult, $10.95/youth ages 6-17, and are available only in conjunction with museum admission. Group rates are also available. Call 615-416-2001 for more information.
Click here to buy the Studio B merchandise
The Past
Historic
RCA Studio B - once the recording home of popular music titans such as
Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins, Eddy Arnold, and the Everly Brothers - is
both a classroom for Nashville-area students and a popular cultural
attraction.
Following the Mike Curb Family Foundation's philanthropic 2002 purchase and subsequent lease in perpetuity to the non-profit Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum, the storied studio's exterior has been renovated and the interior has been returned to its 1970s era prime as an analog "temple of sound."
Built by Dan
Maddox in 1957, RCA Studio B first became known as one of the cradles
of the "Nashville Sound" in the 1960s. A sophisticated style
characterized by background vocals and strings, the Nashville Sound
both revived the popularity of country music and helped establish
Nashville as an international recording center.
Hitmakers in Studio B have included Arnold, Jennings, Bobby Bare, Parton, Reeves, Willie Nelson, and Floyd Cramer, among others. For many years, Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Chet Atkins managed RCA's Nashville operation and produced hundreds of hits in Studio B.
Studio B has also been home to numerous innovations in recording practices, including the development of the "Nashville number system," a musician's shorthand for notating a song's chord structure, which facilitates the creation of individual parts while retaining the integrity of the song.
First made available to Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum visitors in 1977, RCA Studio B was donated to the Museum by the late Dan and Margaret Maddox in 1992. It was operated as an attraction until shortly before the opening of the Museum's new downtown facility in 2001.
The Present
Now leased to the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum from the Curb Family Foundation for $1.00 a year, Studio B is co-managed and operated in partnership with Nashville's Belmont University.
The studio has begun a new life as a learning laboratory for students enrolled in Belmont's Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, studying recording fundamentals; as a classroom for Nashville-area middle and high school students, learning the science of sound and recording technology; and as a cultural attraction for visitors, who can become acquainted with the studio's place in the evolution of Nashville as the Music City.