The Station Inn

About this audio guide

This guide to the Station Inn in Nashville follows Earl J.T. Gray, who bought a struggling cinder-block bluegrass bar on Twelfth Avenue South in nineteen eighty-one. It traces the venue's start with a handful of musicians near Centennial Park, its move to the Gulch, and the unannounced legends, from Bill Monroe to Dolly Parton, who wandered in to play. It's also a story about a neighborhood that transformed into glass and steel around one stubborn owner. Stand outside and look up at what now surrounds this low roof.