Programs feature Mary Gauthier, Country Music Hall of Fame member Mac Wiseman and journalist Jon Bream

Don Henley – Photo by Danny Clinch

The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum and the Americana Music Association continue their partnership this year, presenting stellar events in the Ford Theater and CMA Theater during the 16th Annual Americana Music Festival & Conference, presented by Nissan, September 15-20, 2015. 

Americanafest 2015 will feature more than175 showcase performances and more than 50 educational workshops and panels, making it Nashville’s most comprehensive music education event.   Festival and conference registrations may be purchased HERE ($365 for Americana Music Association members / $465 for non-members) until Thursday, September 10. Rates will increase to $500 for walk-up admission. 

These special Americana–Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum events include a keynote interview, by educator and former Del Fuegos member Warren Zanes, with country–rock pioneer Don Henley. Other events include a songwriter session with critically acclaimed Mary Gauthier; a conversation with and performance by Country Music Hall of Fame member Mac Wiseman; and a roundtable discussion hosted by Jon Bream, author of Dylan Disc by Disc: The Nashville Recordings,with author Holly George-Warren, singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman, steel guitarist and curator Pete Finney, journalist Geoffrey Himes, and British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock.

Dates, times, admission guidelines and additional information are included in the detailed schedule below.

AMERICANAFEST AT THE COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

Wednesday September 16
Dylan Disc by Disc: The Nashville Recordings with author Jon Bream
Noon–1:30 p.m.
Ford Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Jon Bream is a music critic for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and author of the just-published book Dylan: Disc by Disc, in which Bream talks with 55 musicians, journalists and scholars about every album recorded by Dylan. For this session Bream will host a conversation about the albums Dylan recorded in Nashville, including Nashville Skyline and Blonde on Blonde. Singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman; Pete Finney, steel guitarist and guest curator of the museum exhibit Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City;author Holly George-Warren; music journalist Geoffrey Himes; and artist Robyn Hitchcock join Bream.

Offered in support of the exhibit Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City, presented by Citi. Following the program, Bream will sign copies of his book, purchased from the Museum Store. The program will be streamed live at www.countrymusichalloffame.org.
Included with museum admission. Free to museum members and AMA badge holders. Limited seating. Program pass required.

Thursday, September 17
Keynote with Don Henley, interviewed by Warren Zanes
12:30 p.m.–1:30 p.m.
CMA Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

As a founding member of the Eagles and as a solo artist, Don Henley has scored such enduring pop hits as “Desperado,” “Hotel California,” “The Long Run,” “The Boys of Summer,” “The Heart of the Matter,” and “The End of the Innocence.” He is an eight-time Grammy winner, and a preservationist who founded the Walden Woods Project and the Caddo Lake Institute for ecological education and research. On September 25, Henley releases Cass County, his first solo album in fifteen years. It features contributions from Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Miranda Lambert, and Martina McBride. On September 16, Henley will receive the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Trailblazer Award. Musician and teacher Warren Zanes will host this interview. This program will be streamed live at www.countrymusichalloffame.org. Included with museum admission. Free to museum members and AMA badge holders. Limited seating. Program pass required.

Saturday, September 19
Songwriter Session: Mary Gauthier
11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.                       
Ford Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Though she only started writing in her mid-thirties, Mary Gauthier immediately gained critical acclaim for the fearless honesty and compelling characters in her songs. Her 2005 breakout album, Mercy Now, landed on numerous “Best of” lists and Gauthier won the Americana Music Association award for New Artist of the Year. She is an in-demand teacher of songwriting, and her latest release, Trouble in Love, also has been lauded by critics. Gauthier’s songs have been recorded by Tim McGraw and Blake Shelton, and by Jonathan Jackson on the ABC-TV series Nashville. This program will be streamed live at www.countrymusichalloffame.org. Included with museum admission. Free to museum members and AMA badge holders. Limited seating. Program pass required.

Saturday, September 19
Mac Wiseman: Conversation, Performance and Signing
2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m.                                       
Ford Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Country Music Hall of Fame member Mac Wiseman has made more than sixty albums filled with folk, country, bluegrass, pop, and rock & roll music. Known as “the voice with a heart,” Wiseman, 90, began recording in 1946, with Molly O’ Day. He was a lead vocalist for Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and an original member of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs’s Foggy Mountain Boys. He was the Country Music Association’s first secretary, and Dot Records’ country A&R director from 1957 to 1961. Wiseman has recorded with big band legend Woody Herman, songwriting hero John Prine, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Duane Eddy, and country music’s “poet of the common man,” Merle Haggard. He is a Bluegrass Hall of Fame member as well, and the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Heritage Award for lifetime achievement in the traditional arts. In the museum’s Ford Theater, Wiseman will talk with Museum Editor Peter Cooper about his remarkable life in music, and will perform with guitar accompaniment from Thomm Jutz. Following the program, Wiseman will sign copies of his newly released memoir, All My Memories Fit for Print, and his latest solo album, Songs from My Mother’s Hand, purchased from the Museum Store. This program will be streamed live at www.countrymusichalloffame.org. Included with museum admission. Free to museum members and AMA badge holders. Limited seating. Program pass required.

Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964. The museum’s mission is the preservation of the history of country and related vernacular music rooted in southern culture.  With the same educational mission, the foundation also operates CMF Records, the museum’s Frist Library and Archive, CMF Press, Historic RCA Studio B and Hatch Show Print®. Museum programs are made possible, in part, by the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and under agreements with the National Endowment for the Arts.

More information about the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is available at www.countrymusichalloffame.org or by calling (615) 416-2001.