The revival of a seven-decade-old African-American-owned venue highlights the unique importance of public-private partnerships in Nashville’s future
Nashville’s live music scene is expected to look very different in the near future. Read also : Quality Christian Music: 17 Artists to Check Out.
By the end of the year, the current tenants of 3rd & Lindsley, Exit/In and Mercy Lounge are not expected to have their leases renewed or take ownership of their locations. These are spaces that, for the past half century, have served as stalwarts of Music City’s legendary music culture.
“How many independent venues are at risk? All of them,” Exit/In owner Chris Cobb told The Tennessean last month.
But in a stunning turn of events, a famous venue — North Nashville’s 67-year-old Club Baron — has an opportunity to resurface. It will help create Nashville’s modern independent venue legacy.
Something timeless being renewed
“I’m sad that some have closed, but small venues are an essential ecosystem for artist development in the city,” says the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. This may interest you : New research suggests that music can be key to improving your memory. CEO Butch Spyridon.
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Although they’ve been on the wane lately, they’re still the “lifeline” to the city’s reign as a national musical epicenter, he says.
Enter the Pride of Tennessee Elks Lodge #1102 at 2614 Jefferson St., in the historically predominantly African American northwest Nashville corridor, near Fisk and Tennessee State universities.
Since 1972, the space formerly known as Club Baron has been owned by the Pride of Tennessee Elks. It has served as a community hub serving affluent black community leaders and residents of the blue collar area.
Prior to March 2020’s devastating tornado, the Elks Lodge had developed a leaky attic that frequently flooded and needed significant structural improvements. As a result, the property was included on Historic Nashville’s “Nashville Nine” list in 2021, as the building — due to neglect and “inappropriate renovations” — was at risk of demolition.
Rewind to 1963, and Club Baron hosted a legendary Chitlin’ Circuit-era guitar battle between an up-and-coming, freewheeling session musician named Jimi Hendrix and his fellow King Casuals bandmate Johnny Jones. The venue also regularly hosted acts such as Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Etta James, B.B. King, Little Richard and Muddy Waters.
Preserving Jefferson Street’s history is integral to maintaining the city’s “brand history” as a music destination, Spyridon says.
A bittersweet past, a promising future
Spyridon owns up to a lack of widespread awareness of the former Club Baron’s condition prior to the recent call for renovations. He credits Musicians Hall of Fame director Joe Chambers with bringing the issue to his attention. Read also : New city budget increases funding for the arts. After drawing attention to it, the NCVC teamed up with the Elks to raise money to preserve the building.
In the 1960s, construction of Interstate 40 carved a destructive path through Jefferson Street. It forced the closure of rooms including Club Del Morocco, Maceo’s, New Era and Stealaway.
Local music historian Lorenzo Washington opened the Jefferson Street Sound Museum 12 years ago in the space that housed Club Del Morocco, six blocks from Club Baron.
The Elks Lodge has two separate venues at the 2614 location. The main floor is a 500-capacity space with low ceilings and its original stage – the same one where Charles, Hendrix, King and more played – still standing. There is also a meeting room under an upstairs nook that once served as a private speakeasy with quarter slot machines and gambling.
Given the racial tension that has characterized so much of South American history, the tourist bureau’s approach to the all-black moose to help preserve Club Baron seemed problematic.
“When (the congressional office) told the Elks we were going to help them, they looked at us like we had eight heads,” Spyridon jokes. The Elks were initially skeptical of the agency’s goals.
Before any further moves were made, Spyridon’s team had to assure the Elks that they had no hidden agendas, nor did they want to take ownership of their building.
“We didn’t want (any musical or financial goals) to interfere with what we’re trying to accomplish as Elks,” said Les Jones, Elks Lodge leader. “We understand the value (of our venue) as a nightclub, but first and foremost, this lodge is the home of our organization.”
It will be challenging to combine what will likely involve at least over $50 million in property sales and redevelopment of Music City’s independent venue history while preserving the charm of its infamous past.
The start of the renovation is small, yet significant: $300,000 toward a new ceiling and fixing flooding and plumbing issues, plus a new purple entryway awning.
In an article in the Tennessee Ledger seven years ago headlined “Rekindling the Flame That Was Jefferson Street,” Washington, the music historian, predicted that North Nashville was one of the places to invest.
He also singled out the development of the Nashville Sounds’ home at First Horizon Park and the development of condominiums as harbingers of the need for Jefferson Street’s renewal: “Those people are going to need places to eat, places to hear music. It’s going to happen. It is happening.”
Washington’s notions have proven correct on all fronts.
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The original investors in the space are a public-private partnership of old and new Nashvillians, embracing all areas of the cultural, ideological, racial and social spectrum.
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George Walker IV, Nashville, Tennessean
They include the State of Tennessee, the Government of Metro Nashville, Amazon, the Tennessee Titans Foundation, Music City Inc. (the charitable foundation of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp.), R.H. Boyd Family and Company, Mark Bloom’s Corner Partnership, Martin’s Barbecue LLC, MOJO Marketing + PR and Goo Goo Clusters makers Standard Candy Co.
Other notable individual donors include Bank of Nashville Chairman J. Hunter Atkins, StyleBlueprint’s Elizabeth Fox, construction consulting and project management firm Don Hardin Group, Fifth Third Bank executive vice president and head of commercial banking Kevin Lavender and his wife, Mae, co-owners of Cushion Employer Services Pam and Bill Martin, Attorney Will Martin, Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau Vice President of Multicultural Tourism and Development Connie Kinnard, President and CEO of Kinnard & Associates Rhea Kinnard (and family), Sueing Insurance Agency Inc. President Charles Sueing and the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. Chief Diversity Officer Marie Suenig
The city’s music industry and related businesses are also well represented. They include BMI, concert promoter Victor Chatman Productions, Curb Records, Vector Management’s Ken Levitan and his wife, Gloria Dumas, via the American Endowment Foundation, Live Nation, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, plus BMI’s executive creative director Shannon Sanders.
“The first three checks to come in,” according to Spyridon, were from AJ Capital Partners (which bought the Exit/In property in 2020) and Adventurous Journeys LLC, Morgan Wallen’s More Than My Hometown Foundation and Eric Church via the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and Chief Cares Fund.
‘Revitalization without gentrification’
Spyridon has high hopes for Club Baron’s future. He cites the upcoming 1,000-seat venue, Timberhawk Hall in Madison, as another example of the area’s economic boom spreading to underserved communities via live music. Furthermore, he adds, if Nashville is to continue its socioeconomic development, it will require both preserving the city’s history and also reviving parts of it.
To that end, he notes that venue sponsor Live Nation has offered to book some acts at the venue. He also highlights hopes for partnerships between Club Baron and the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the Jefferson Street Sound Museum and Lower Broadway’s National Museum of African-American Music as high-priority goals.
Roughly two decades after the tourism bureau devised a strategic plan for the city’s development, its primary goal is to emphasize the authentic diversity—and the history of diversity—being realized in Nashville’s musical and artistic community. Spyridon notes that the emergence and entrenchment of another wave of country music, indie rock, Americana singer-songwriters, and gospel and jazz are critical successes that the city aims to sustain.
District 15 Metro Council member Jeff Syracuse is also associate director of client relations at Music Row’s BMI. He is also a passionate advocate for the city’s independent venues.
He believes Nashville needs “more proactive” policies to service the city’s music ecosystem. He hopes that going forward more emphasis will be placed on developing spaces like the Elks Lodge that “support a community-building culture.” He highlights a $260,000 proposal using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act passed in April as integral to helping established and new local venues grapple with skyrocketing land and operating costs.
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Club Baron: Beacon of Nashville’s ideal future?
Ideally, Spyridon envisions a future where Lower Broadway’s many honky-tonks stand together with “the soul of the city” — the Station Inn, a “preserved” Exit/In, Club Baron and other smaller venues — to ensure that Nashville’s music industry is part of the city’s continued growth.
“This is the easiest fundraiser we’ve ever done and the best story we’ve ever told,” says Spyridon. “We have the right intentions to preserve a community, but it’s important to revitalize it without gentrifying it.”
Jones, the head of the Elks club, notes that the lodge has served the community for nearly a century.
“As much as this space has hosted concerts, it has also served meals, provided support for youth sports teams, and every other Wednesday allowed some amazing Black Nashville residents – doctors, lawyers, business people and more – to come together to keep our community strong and united,” he says.
Discovering the synergy between serving Nashville as an economic juggernaut and a just, diverse community that is bigger than hearing live music in independent spaces, via Club Baron’s potential success, is Music City’s most important goal.
There is no definitive reopening date for the Elks Lodge as a performance venue, although Jones hopes to host Fisk University homecoming events in the fall as the venue continues more extensive renovations.
Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. has provided a link for interested parties to donate to the Elks Lodge #1102/Club Baron campaign at www.visitmusiccity.com/clubbarondonation.
