There are artists that Reba McEntire has not heard of on display at the newest Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit, which speaks volumes about the definition of “American Currents.”
The country legend and ACM Awards host has her dress from the Kennedy Center Honors and 2018 Kennedy Center Honors medallion on display at the American Currents: The Music of 2018 exhibit that opens on Friday (March 8). She tells Taste of Country her appetite for new styles of music and new artists is never-ending.
“The same way with the ACMs this year. There’s new people coming on in the new female, new male charts that I haven’t met,” McEntire says.
Contemporary country stars like Kane Brown, Keith Urban, Florida Georgia Line and Luke Combs have items displayed alongside lesser-known, but still influential and important singers, songwriters and instrumentalists like John Prine, the late John Hartford and the First Ladies of Bluegrass. Alison Brown, banjo player for the IBMA award winning group, talked about the importance of the exhibit for women in bluegrass.
“Traditionally bluegrass music was a man’s music, and even though there have been women through the history of the music, it’s really only been in the last 30 years that women have really had the opportunity to be band leaders and play leadership roles in the music,” she says. “So to me the significance of having us all together is to hopefully empower young women that are coming up that, ‘Hey, I could play banjo or play bluegrass music.'”
