Visiting the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville, TN

In March, Matt + I met Stacey in Nashville so we could celebrate Stacey’s and my birthdays! When we started coming up with some ideas of what to do in Nashville visiting the Johnny Cash Museum topped my list. I love Johnny + June so it was really cool to get to learn more about them.

Visiting the Johnny Cash Museum is really convenient especially if you’re heading to the oh-so-famous Broadway. It’s just off Broadway on 3rd street. Tickets are $18.95 for standard general admission tickets – they do offer some discounts.

The Johnny Cash Museum is filled with memorabilia from all throughout Johnny’s life, his music career, from musicians signed by Sun Records around the same time as him and memorabilia form the Oscar-winning biopic Walk the Line.

Assorted items line one side of a long hall – including an old hymnal Johnny loved to sing from (left). The middle photo is the original copy of ‘I Walk the Line’ signed by Johnny Cash and Sun Records founder Sam Phillips. The last photo is one of Johnny’s Guitars.

This was the wall opposite the display of random memorabilia. It was actually one of my favorite parts of the museum. It was a brief summary of big events in Cash’s life by decade. Each had a photo of Cash with a list of highlights from the decade. It was a quick easy way to learn quite a bit about him.

Among many other things, awards and gold records were on display.

[Left] Johnny Cash’s prison jumpsuit from Folsom Prison – they made one just for his concert there. [Right] Johnny + June’s wedding photo. 

It was pretty incredible to see what a massive collection of music this man created. There were walls covered with records and record covers! 

There were multiple interactive exhibits. Stacey and Matt enjoyed a couple of them. There are also loads of videos playing throughout the museum.

I really loved seeing all of the different tour memorabilia. I have my own collection of concert momentoes. 

Being an even bigger Dylan fan than Johnny Cash Fan, I loved seeing this exhibit and seeing Bob Dylan’s take on this album and working with the great Johnny Cash.  

I also greatly enjoyed the Sun Studio artist section of the museum because Stacey and I toured the old studio in Memphis in 2014. It was a bit like coming full circle.

I’ve been to a lot of museums that are dedicated to specific people. However, I have got to say that this was one of the best ones I’ve been to. It was a great combination of career and personal life. I also loved that they had exhibits that related to his music and even Walk the Line. I learned a lot about Johnny Cash’s career and later years of life and even more about his beautiful marriage.

To Visit or Not to Visit?

I wouldn’t recommend this museum to someone who doesn’t like Johnny Cash. While that seems kind-of obvious, I’ve visited many museums about people I don’t know much about. However, since this ticket price is so high, I would only visit if I had an interest. If you are a Johnny Cash fan, or even if you just loved the movie Walk the Line, I would recommend it! It was a great museums with lots of very interesting exhibits.

There’s so much more just past beautiful Broadway than bars and shops. Don’t forget to dig a little deeper when you travel.

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