Historic Ernest Tubb Record Shop Celebrates Revitalized Space Before Reopening: ‘We Want to Restore the DNA Of What Made It Great’ 

Three years after the legendary Ernest Tubb Record Shop closed in 2022, the iconic establishment is gearing up to celebrate its official reopening during a celebration set for Nov. 13. 

The late Country Music Hall of Fame member Tubb, known for hits including “Walking The Floor Over You,” “Soldier’s Last Letter,” and “Waltz Across Texas,” first opened the Ernest Tubb Record Shop on Nashville’s Commerce Street in May 1947. Since 1951, the Ernest Tubb Record Shop has been in its current location at 417 Broadway in downtown Nashville. 

While the shop sold vinyl records and music songbooks, it also became a heralded performance spot due to Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree, where artists who were performing on Saturday nights at the Grand Ole Opry (then centered at the Ryman Auditorium) would head to the nearby shop afterward to perform late-night sets that would broadcast on WSM radio. Over the years, Tubb, who joined the cast of the Opry in 1943, welcomed and encouraged artists including Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams, Patsy Clin, and Johnny Cash, giving younger artists valuable career exposure. Over time, the shop became a home for community and camaraderie. Tubb was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, and won the Academy of Country Music’s pioneer award in 1980. Tubb died in 1984.

The same year the shop closed, brothers Jamie and Bryan Kenney, co-founders of management company Tusk Brothers Entertainment, bought the four-story building. The brothers are the team behind Nashville’s Wedgewood-Houston bar Never Never, as well as Reunion Bar & Hotel in East Nashville. They teamed with Tubb’s grandson Dale Tubb, as well as top-flight Nashville session musician Ilya Toshinskiy, to revitalize the record shop. 

“The first time I met these guys, they said, ‘We’ve been entrusted with this important piece of history,’” the younger Tubb tells Billboard. “Everything they do from a storytelling standpoint is to preserve and tell that story properly, to preserve the essence, the bones and the spirit of this place.’” 

Now, the building that houses the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, has been revitalized to not only revive the record shop, but make use of all four stories, adding performance spaces, a honky-tonk and an open-air rooftop bar. The walls have the original exposed brick. 

In the process of preserving the building, the brothers got a first–hand look at the memorabilia Tubb’s grandson had kept over the years, such as journals where the country artist scribbled song ideas, a letter from Minnie Pearl telling Tubb she’d dropped off muffins for him, or a telegram from Johnny Cash telling Tubb that one of Cash’s children had been born. There is another letter from Cash, wherein the Man In Black was attempting to get a meeting with Tubb to discuss playing on the Grand Ole Opry. Much of that memorabilia now lines the walls of the building’s four floors. 

“We saw the depths of his influence in a totally new way,” Jamie Kenney says. “[Ernest] was truly the godfather, the kingpin of country music.”  

“It’s still very in line with what he did,” Dale Tubb says of the venue’s continuation of his grandfather’s legacy. “He partied hard. Granddad would be slinging booze in here. This place evolved, just like the music did. Music evolves as society evolves.” 

The first floor features a honky-tonk with two bars and two stages (including the original stage of Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree), as well as photos of Tubb with his fellow country stars. Throughout the venue, there is more memorabilia, such as Tubb’s guitars, cowboy boots from the 1940s and a revolver Tubb used as a prop when filming the western The Fighting Buckaroo. 

“The story that the first place Patsy [Cline] played in Nashville was the Midnite Jamboree; well, here’s the thank you letter from that night. What are the odds that it’s still in mint condition and didn’t get tossed or hidden in someone’s private collection?” Dale Tubb says. “You could immediately tell there was a sense that these guys care about this type of environment. There’s a true respect for the music.” 

On the second floor is the record shop, with vinyl records for sale on wooden shelves, along with branded merchandise, another bar and space to host live acoustic performances in an intimate setting. The third floor offers a private event space, outfitted with vintage lighting and a bar, offering an exclusive setting for industry showcases, album release parties and label events.  

“Through the whole project, we want to honor the music business, because the music business is the piece that built this,” Jamie says. “We’ve been touring all the labels and the Opry and publishers and artists and just kind of saying, ‘We’re the stewards of this, but this is yours.’” 

The basement has been revamped to become The Forty Seven lounge, which showcases wood-paneled walls, vintage accents and velvet seating — all paying tribute to 1947, the year Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop first opened. The Kenney Brothers estimate the remodeled venue has a capacity of around 1,000 people. 

“Ernest Tubb seemed to be the classic gatherer of the people, and he was very ahead of his time,” Jamie says. “He always honored the past, but he would always grab the younger artists of his day, people that were up-and-coming. We want to reflect that, too. All these things we’re calling ‘country-adjacent’ or ‘folk,’ ‘Americana.’ I think he would have loved that. It’s going to be a curated artistic aesthetic.” 

On Nov. 15, the longtime Midnite Jamboree will return to Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop, airing on WSM 650 AM radio. 

“The soul of the record shop was the performances and these country stars wandering over from that alley 200 feet away, after they performed at the Opry, grabbing a flask of whisky or a six-pack, jumping onstage and having a party,” Bryan says. 

“We don’t just want to save the record shop,” he adds. “We want to restore the DNA of what made it great and give it a new iteration, so it has many more years.”