Night Train to Nashville, Vol. 2

Both volumes accompany the Museum's same-titled multi-media exhibition, which opened in March 2004 and closes in December this year. The exhibition and its accompanying recordings, publications and continuing series of public programs revisit an almost forgotten time when Middle Tennessee was a major center for R&B musicians and their followers. "The Night Train story resurrects and celebrates an important era in the evolution of Nashville as Music City," said Museum Director Kyle Young. "The avalanche of local and national critical acclaim it has already received has helped not only to validate the work of important artists, but also to create new opportunities for them.

The two-CD second volume further illustrates the sterling quality and diverse sounds of the Nashville rhythm & blues that exploded across national radio and television airwaves (even though it was not considered suitable for family audiences) in this period. Again, there are numerous interesting examples of collaborations between R&B and country music artists, of country songs that became R&B hits and R&B songs that became country hits. The major focus is on Nashville-based artists, but the collection also includes selected recordings by renowned out-of-towners such as Ivory Joe Hunter, Clyde McPhatter, Esther Phillips and John Coltrane (as a member of Gay Crosse's band). A number of the Nashville artists, including the Spidells, Jimmy Church and Sandra King, appeared in the 1960s on the all-black, Nashville-produced, groundbreaking television program Night Train. First imagined by show host Noble Blackwell, Night Train was followed in later years by the more well-known, Chicago-based Soul Train.

"I think Volume Two strikes a balance between well-known hits and seductive rarities," said Museum Associate Editor Michael Gray, who co-produced both volumes with Dan Cooper.