Music Archive

Knoxville Music Archive & Oral History Project

Curating Notable Shows, Lost Venues & Memories

 

Rock / Indie/ Jazz / Country / Pop / Rap / Folk

 

Courtesy Jennie Andrews/Historic Tennessee Theatre.

 

Through research and crowdsourcing, this project aims to collect surviving material from memories and personal collections about notable shows and gigs in Knoxville, primarily since the mid-1950s.

If you live in a larger city like New York or Atlanta then almost every major act performs there. But in a city the size of Knoxville its a different story. But its also OUR STORY. Most of us have fond memories of incredible shows over the years at the Tennessee or the Bijou and the Civic Coliseum & Auditorium. And how all those smaller venues, many of them now gone, that have hosted amazing shows over the years?

Help us build an engaging repository here at the Knoxville Music Archive.

KEY GOALS:

  • Curating an engaging chronology (and by genre) of notable shows since the mid-1950s
  • Documenting lost music venues on Market Square, the Strip, the Old City, and out in the suburbs
  • Collecting Stories / Photographs / Gig tickets / Posters & flyers / Related memorabilia
  • Developing an online platform to engage readers and listeners to showcase stories and content
  • Producing a series of guided conversations for podcast episodes and online blurbs and memories
  • Collecting and preserving current show posters & flyers (print & digital)

 

 

For this Project, What Makes a Show Particularly Notable?

  1. A major artist playing in Knoxville for the first and perhaps only time. Examples: The Jacksons at Neyland Stadium, 1984 or Paul McCartney at Thompson-Boling in 2023.)
  2. An artist playing a small venue (perhaps long-gone) early in their career and who later became a major act. Examples: Red Hot Chili Peppers at Gabby’s on the Strip in 1984; Garth Brooks at Ella Gurus in 1989; U2 at UT in 1982; R.E.M’s early shows on the Strip in the early ‘80s.)
  3. Something else happened at the show that made it stand out. (The Rolling Stones’ matinee show fiasco at Civic Coliseum in 1965; Iggy Pop playing the last show at Hobos in 1982.)

 

Do you have stories, photos, tickets, and posters & flyers to share? 

  • Suggest a notable show or any show that you fondly remember and know a story about.
  • Share digital copies of photos, tickets, posters & flyers, etc. from your own collection (or donate*).
  • Write up or talk with us about your memories for record conversations and sound bites

*Physical items donated will ultimately be preserved by the McClung Historical Collection, part of the Knox County Library.

 

SPECIAL THANKS SO FAR: 

Pete Carty, Eric Dawson, Paul Parris, Benny Smith, Jack Rentfro, Todd Smith.

Contact: Paul James, Knoxville History Project, 123 S. Gay Street, Suite C, Knoxville TN 37902

865-337-7723 or paul@knoxhistoryproject.org

 

 

CURRENT HISTORIC MUSIC VENUES

 

Knoxville’s oldest operating theatre, the Bijou opened in 1909 and is connected to what we know today as the Lamar House, which dates to 1816. Learn more about the deep history of the Bijou HERE.

After a major renovation in 1974, a wide array of musicians have performed here, including Chet Atkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Rhiannon Giddens, Nine Inch Nails, the Psychedelic Furs, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Sarah Vaughan, , and Doc Watson, and Miles Davis drummer Jimmy Cobb. In 2009, during the first Big Ears festival, New York Times critic Ben Ratliff described the Bijou as “mystically great,” and “one of the best rooms in the country” for music.

 

Built in 1928 to show movies, the Tennessee Theatre often featured live music before and after the films. Live music dwindled after World War II, as the theater concentrated on its role as a cinema, until it closed in 1977. Learn more about the history of the Tennessee HERE.

Following a major renovation 2005, the Tennessee has welcomed an encyclopedic array of legends: Loretta Lynn, Sonny Rollins, Tony Bennett, Bob Dylan, Allison Krauss, Lou Reed, David Byrne, Diana Ross, George Jones, the Every Brothers, Morrissey, and Elvis Costello.

 

 

Opened in 1961 during Urban Renewal, the Civic Auditorium & Coliseum was Knoxville’s first large venue to open without regard to racial segregation.

Over the years, particularly, the Coliseum has hosted an encyclopedic array of stellar performers, including Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan (in 1965), the original Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones (1965 and 1972, joined by Steve Wonder in the latter show), Otis Redding (1967, the year he died in a plane crash), Eric Clapton with Muddy Waters (1979). Perhaps ironically, some country-music stars long known to small Knoxville radio and TV studio audiences, including Dolly Parton (in 1966), performed their first advertised local concerts at the Civic Coliseum. Learn more in KHP’s Music Guide, see below.

 

LOST VENUES

Coming Soon!

 

“KNOXVILLE: A WALKING MUSIC GUIDE” by Jack Neely.

This free guide, published by KHP, emphasizes downtown sites associated with songwriters, composers and musicians well-known enough to be recognizable by the American music-listening public, and serves as a handy introduction to the Knoxville-centric work of these writers and musicians.

You can read it online or pick up a copy from several downtown locations.

Learn more HERE.

 

 

PARTNERS: