Music Row Layover: RCA Studio B, Nashville
Part of the full Nashville From BNA: Broadway and the Ryman
Music Row, the strip of converted bungalows on 16th and 17th Avenues South in Nashville, still runs as a working recording district, and the one room in it open to visitors is RCA Studio B, on a timed tour that leaves from downtown.
Inside RCA Studio B on Roy Acuff Place
The studio at 1611 Roy Acuff Place went up in November 1957, four months’ work for $37,515, and over the next twenty years more than 47,000 songs were recorded in it, including over two hundred by Elvis Presley. Chet Atkins and the engineer Bill Porter worked out the string arrangements and layered backing vocals here that became the Nashville Sound, and across the studio’s two decades about sixty percent of the songs on Billboard’s country chart came out of this room.
It stopped working in 1977 and the Country Music Hall of Fame took ownership in 1992. There is no walk-up entry: a guide takes thirty people at a time on a shuttle from the museum on Rep. John Lewis Way South out to 1611 Roy Acuff Place, and the ticket is sold as a combination with museum admission, around $54.95 for adults and $44.95 for ages six to twelve. Arrive fifteen minutes before the slot on your ticket.
Thirty people and a guide fill the shuttle and then the control room, and there is nowhere on either to put a bag down.
Outside the studio, Music Row is not really a place to visit so much as a place to walk through: two long avenues of 1930s and 1940s houses with publishers’ and labels’ names on the doors, people going in and out with guitar cases, and no admission charged anywhere because nothing here is selling admission. Twenty minutes covers it.
Belmont Mansion’s Italian villa on Acklen Avenue
Adelicia Acklen finished a summer house on 180 acres off what is now Acklen Avenue by 1853, an Italian villa in pink stucco with white columned porches and a cupola on the roof, a mile south of the studios. She was among the wealthiest women in the antebellum South, and the house has been restored to how it stood in her time: marble statuary and a domed Grand Salon among them.
A guide gives an introduction in the Grand Salon and then you go round at your own pace, which takes most people 45 minutes to an hour. It is open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 3:30pm, and Sunday from 11am, and adult admission is $18. The grounds around it are Belmont University’s campus now, so the villa sits among lecture halls.
The airport bus runs from downtown, not from Music Row
WeGo Route 18 to Nashville International Airport (BNA) starts at Bay 14 on the Fourth Avenue side of WeGo Central, so from Music Row it is a bus east along West End or Broadway first, ten to fifteen minutes, then the airport bus: $2 a leg, every 30 minutes from 5:50am until 11:15pm, 34 to 40 minutes for the second leg and longer during the afternoon rush.
Everything here turns on the studio tour’s departure time, which is the opposite of how the rest of the city works. If your free hours will not line up with a slot, the full Nashville layover guide covers Lower Broadway and the museums, none of which need booking to walk into.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near Music Row in Nashville?
Book the studio tour first and plan around it. RCA Studio B at 1611 Roy Acuff Place is the only working piece of Music Row open to visitors, reached by a shuttle that leaves from the Country Music Hall of Fame downtown, and tours take 30 people at a time. Around it, the district is converted bungalows along 16th and 17th Avenues South, quiet on foot and free to walk. Belmont Mansion, an 1853 Italian villa on Acklen Avenue, is a mile south and open daily.
Can you visit RCA Studio B without going to the Country Music Hall of Fame first?
No. The studio is owned by the museum and the only public access is a guided tour that departs from the museum on Rep. John Lewis Way South, with the ride out to Roy Acuff Place included. Turn up fifteen minutes before your slot. The combined museum and studio ticket runs about $54.95 for adults and $44.95 for ages 6 to 12.
How do you get from Music Row to Nashville International Airport?
In two legs. A bus along West End or Broadway reaches downtown in ten to fifteen minutes, and WeGo Route 18 to BNA leaves from Bay 14 at WeGo Central for $2, every 30 minutes from 5:50am to 11:15pm, taking 34 to 40 minutes. Allow an hour and a half from Music Row, more in the afternoon rush.
Is there anything free to see on Music Row?
The district itself, which is the point of walking it. Sixteenth and Seventeenth Avenues South are lined with 1930s and 1940s bungalows converted into publishers, labels and management offices, still working buildings rather than exhibits, and nothing charges to walk past. What you will not find is a venue: the studios here are businesses, and Studio B is the exception because it stopped being one in 1977.