NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee record store with a deep connection to more than seven decades of country music history is closing its Music City shop.
Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville will close this spring, The Tennessean reported. In a Facebook post, the Honky Tonk Circus, ETRS and David McCormick Company said the business and the building on Broadway will be sold.
“We are heartbroken that the store, which has existed in its current location in the heart of lower Broadway since 1951, will close this spring,” the post stated. “Preserving the history and tradition of country music remains at the forefront of everything we do.”
Country music star Ernest Tubb opened the record store in May 1947 and moved it to its current location at 417 Broadway four years later, The Tennessean reported. The shop sells CDs, vinyl records and also displays rare memorabilia from country stars including Loretta Lynn and Tanya Tucker, according to the newspaper. Performers including Patsy Cline and Porter Wagoner were frequent visitors to the store, according to The Tennessean.
Kacey Musgraves hosted a free in-store performance and record signing at the shop in November 2016, the newspaper reported.
The record store was the original home of the Midnite Jamboree, a late-night radio show that aired from 1951 to 1995, WTVF-TV reported. The show, which aired after Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts, would feature artists who dropped in from the Ryman Auditorium to continue playing in front of a live audience.
The shop, with its distinctive guitar sign outside the front door and a revolving sign, had 100,000 mail-order customers, WTVF reported.
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