Mary T.
Yelp
My first museum visit while in Nashville was the Johnny Cash Museum. I had a great time.
I like that you can buy tickets online. You aren't committed to use them on a particular day, within a particular time slot. I appreciated that flexibility as a first-time visitor to the city and not knowing how much time I'd need to head over, figure out parking, and find this museum.
I found parking steps away from the museum. I originally paid for two hours of parking with an online purchase. I actually decided to max it out because my time at this museum and being in this area was great. You can extend it online, too.
I have two areas that need improvement with this museum. One is signage. Most who have read my reviews know that I do well with signs. An absence makes me scratch my head to figure things out on my own, like a mouse in some twisted maze.
I walked in and there was a line for tickets. The building has the Johnny Cash Museum on the main floor. The Patsy Cline Museum is on the second floor.
Even though I knew which floor had which music icon, I had no idea where to go to get in to the Johnny Cash Museum itself. You literally walk in to the gift shop, which was weird, but nice if you just want to visit it and nothing else.
I finally saw a woman to the right of the nondescript entrance. I walked over to her. It was the place to show my ticket on my phone. She scanned it, told me to have a good time, and look for the exit at the end.
During my visit, I was immersed in so much Cash memorabilia and facts about the man, his music, his life, and a whole lot more. It was nice reading his hand-written letters over the years to his loves. There is a lot of text that accompanies artifacts. If you hate reading, you will like look at all his albums and accolades, and be rather bored afterwards.
You can watch brief movies as you go. It's nice if you want to take a load off your feet. I wanted to learn more about the man in black and didn't mind resting my feet. I loved that he had his own show and had Gordon Lightfoot as a guest. Naturally, this Canadian stayed to watch the short documentary again just to soak in Gordon Lightfoot's performance.
This museum is nicely curated. You come out admiring Cash's accomplishments, from having his music on reel-to-real and iPods, to all his music honours over the decades. His accolades are vast that they require multiple walls to display them all.
Being a tourist, I had the opportunity to get my photo taken with Cash in various poses. The woman helping me out with the props was super nice, making sure that I was good holding a guitar with my wrist splint on. I got both physical photos and digital copies to download. She ended up printing my photos twice, so I got a second set for free. Yay!
The signage to exit the museum was also difficult to find. I eventually did, but it took some time to find it. It wasn't obvious to me.
I normally get something at a gift shop. It's the other area that needs improvement. I didn't like any of the clothing. The designs were nice, but the material wasn't soft. I can imagine wearing a t-shirt and having it exfoliate my skin as I walked around with it on.
The variety was nice in the shop. It's that nothing appealed to me. Weird.
I'd return again. I'd also like to check out the Patsy Cline Museum while I'm at it.
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