NASHVILLE TO MUSCLE SHOALS

From the big machine of the music industry to the unlikely rural studios that helped launch some of the biggest music careers in the world, the contrast between Nashville and Muscle Shoals, the endpoints of this Gold Record Road drive, gives you a fascinating look into the historic commerce of American music. Nashville is known worldwide as Music City, but not because the music itself sprung organically from the land and the water here. Instead, Nashville is the magical, magnetic spot where stars were and are born; it’s the legendary place where labels, studios, producers, writers and artists built a booming business polishing the rural acts of the Triangle and packaging them for the public.

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Most famously, it’s where the Grand Ole Opry put country music on the map—literally—as an advertising vehicle for life insurance; today, the Opry is an American institution with a membership roster that reads like a family tree of music royalty. The city’s music reputation knows no genre boundaries—artists and producers come from all over the world for a chance to perform and record in Nashville. Head south on the Gold Record Road for an authentic small-town experience in Franklin and Leiper’s Fork, where rural living, celebrity status and big music business live in harmony. You’ll follow the Natchez Trace for a scenic drive through history, traveling the legendary road that brought people to the area, and connected the communities—and the music—along the way.

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Make a stop in Lawrenceburg, and visit the hallowed ground of Southern gospel music, a major influence on the young Elvis Presley and countless others. End up in the Shoals, which feels like the yin to Nashville’s twang: a clutch of small Alabama towns with a laid-back, no-frills Southern culture that contrasted sharply with other “Music Cities” like Memphis and Nashville in the 1960s. That isolated magic bred a funky new blend of R&B, rock, country and gospel music, and made its tiny, underdog studios a hot spot for one big artist after another, popularizing what became known as the Muscle Shoals sound and changing music history forever.