“I remember an incident that happened at the Club Barron,” Yates continues. “Jimi had been out on the road with Little Richard, as a matter of fact. This particular night, all the musicians in town had gathered at this one particular club because we heard there was going to be basically, a battle of musicians, especially guitar players. So our band, the Imperial 7, was there that particular night with Johnny Jones. Every musician you could think of was there. Wayne Bennett, another guitar player with Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, was there also. And about the time it was almost all over with, here comes Jimi through the door, dragging his guitar and dragging the amplifier. Anyway, he took Johnny Jones’s guitar and played it and played it better than Johnny Jones. And I mean that place went wild that night. I thought to myself, ‘My God, nobody can ever touch this kid.’ I remember him being the best I ever heard in my life.”

Nashville’s Bijou Theater on Fourth Avenue became a major hot spot for entertainment. Though it was white-owned, the Bijou considered itself a black-oriented venue. It was able to bring in renowned performers like Bessie Smith. They even had a vaudeville-style show hosted by local entertainer Jerrie Jackson. Jazz icon Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham started out as a teenager playing in the Bijou Theater’s orchestra pit. “I couldn’t work for the whites, you understand that, so the only way I could get any experience was sitting in the [Bijou] pit with the band and playing shows…because I wanted to learn more about singers, blues singers and all that,” he explained.

“Looking back on it, I think [the Bijou] did a lot for, I’ll say, the black community. It gave them something of their own to see and enjoy. And that’s what they did. And they really supported it. They really did,” said Bijou Dancer (and Jerrie Jackson’s wife) Irene Jackson.

Despite the music revolution going on, some aspects of progress were hindered by the political and social views of the times. As Yates describes it, “We had little, small write ups in the paper, nothing really big you know. We had our own ideas about what we wanted to record, but we couldn’t get that done because of our color, you know. But we kept on.”

And kept on The Imperials and oh-so-many more did, plowing new ground as musical pioneers. Luckily they were in a hip music scene, and that was enough to keep many acts in the limelight. “There were some acts who were very popular on the live music circuit even if their records weren’t smash hits. You know, things were very different back then, in terms of what was considered popular. Something could be considered popular regionally, but not make it on the national charts,” explains Curator Michael Gray.

“We were just worry-free at that time, we didn’t have any serious responsibilities. At the time I don’t think nobody had any kids. If I could go back to that time I would. Not anything we done at that time that I regret. It was a lot of fun in those days. It really was,” concludes Imperial’s drummer Freeman Brown.

“Over the course of 21 months, we want this R&B story to be accessible to young and old and to the family,” says Country Music Hall of Fame senior director for museum programs, Jay Orr.

Check out www.countrymusichalloffame.com for upcoming scheduled events, or call 615-416-2001