The Birthplace of Country Music

Special Exhibit: Ellen Elmes, The Art of Music and Mountains
2025-03-08 - 2025-09-30 | VA
Dates: March 8-September 30, 2025
Location: Special Exhibits Gallery, Birthplace of Country Music Museum
Artist Ellen Elmes moved to Appalachia over five decades ago, intrigued by the beauty of people and place. She continues to admire the close-knit kinship of families and neighbors, and the reliance of mountaineers on hard work, community, nature, and the grace of God to build a life, and every day she finds wonder in the ethereal beauty of misty mountains, the rhythms of changing seasons, and the expanse of the night sky unobscured by city lights. Many of these elements became the substance of her art.
Ellen Elmes: The Art of Music and Mountains features her creativity across a variety of mediums and themes, from traditional instruments, musicians, and songs to the grandiosity and minutiae of nature. The core of this exhibition – a series of acrylic on canvas, large-scale paintings entitled “Tribute to the Stanley Brothers” and inspired by their songs – is an example of a body of work that awakened in the artist a deeper understanding of the roots, stories, and expression embodied in old-time and traditional songs of the mountains.
Artwork will include examples of acrylic, watercolor, and murals. Objects related to the Stanley Brothers will be on display, including several on loan from the Ralph Stanley Museum in Clintwood, VA. The “Tribute to the Stanley Brothers” series is on loan from the Clintwood Community Hall.
Additional free and low-cost complementary programming supported by the United Company Foundation will be scheduled during the exhibit.

Museum Storytime - Rainy Days
2025-04-04 10:30 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Birthplace of Country Music Museum, 101 Country Music Way, Bristol, VA, 24201, United States
Date: Friday, April 4, 2025
Time: 10:30 a.m. EST
Location: The Learning Center, Birthplace of Country Music Museum
Cost: Free and open to the public
Theme: Rainy Days
Join us in the museum’s Learning Center for our monthly Museum Storytime program. Aimed at toddler-age children and their grown-ups, we will gather on the first Friday of each month for a music- or Appalachia-related storybook, a tune or two by WBCM Radio Bristol show host Ella Patrick, and a related activity or coloring sheet. The craft will be making a rain cloud.
Books that will be featured at Storytime include:

Lorraine: The Girl Who Sang the Storm Away by Ketch Secor (Author), Higgins Bond (Illustrator)
Come A Tide by George Ella Lyon (Author), Stephen Gammell (Illustrator)

American Songcatcher
2025-04-04 11:00 - 11:15 | VA
American Songcatcher is a documentary-style podcast that educates, preserves and connects the cultural heritage of American roots music, weaving stories from across the roots spectrum from Traditional music to Blues, Country, Bluegrass, Ragtime, Jazz, Gospel, Old-Time, and Folk, produced and hosted by folk musician and music historian Nicholas Edward Williams. Tune in every Friday at 11am EST!

Country Song Round Up
2025-04-04 12:00 - 15:00 | VA
Craving country authenticity? Tune in on Fridays, 12:30 – 2:30 p.m. ET for Country Song Round Up. From Roy Acuff to Dwight Yoakam, it’s twang aplenty and songs of substance. Your host and longtime music journalist, Tom Netherland, will present a good natured riot every week.

The Pocket
2025-04-04 17:00 - 18:00 | VA
“The Pocket” is an hour-long, weekly show that hopes to introduce the listener to soul music, or at least remind them of something they might have forgotten about along the way. Playing his favorite soul songs on the radio is not something host Jared Bentley thought he’d get the chance to do, but he’s certainly reveling in the opportunity, so tune in and see what it’s all about. Tune in every Friday at 5pm EST.
