Punk, Johnny Cash, Motown, Blues….

Voting for USA Today’s Best Music Museum 2025 Ends Feb. 10

Source: Etta’s Etceteras

Of the 20 museums in the running for USA Today’s Best Music Museum 2025, 40% of them are located in Tennessee. This makes me happy.

As a native Tennessean, I like feel-good stuff about the state. We have a long history in music, and plenty of folks have worked hard to preserve that. Nice.

Public voting is open until noon on Feb. 10 for Best Music Museum 2025 (https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/travel/best-music-museum-2025/). Winners will be announced by USA Today on Feb. 19.

Nashville and Memphis each have four candidates. In Nashville, there are museums dedicated to Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, as well as the National Museum of African-American Music and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The nominees in Memphis are Sun Studio, Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum and the Blues Hall of Fame Museum. Whew, that’s a lot of music.

Browsing through the other nominees, I was surprised – and delighted – to learn there’s the Punk Rock Museum in Vegas and the Musical Instrument Museum, with 7,500+ instruments, in Phoenix. New York has the Museum at Bethel Woods, a celebration and commemoration of all things Woodstock. (Officially called the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Festival.)

Source: USA Today/Johnny Cash Museum (Nashville, TN)

Doing the research on music museums got me thinking about my own family’s music. The first song I plunked out on my aunt’s bright red upright piano was “Eleanor Rigby,” thanks to the sheet music and fingering chart she had stashed in the bench. Papoo (her dad/my grandfather) made the dulcimer in the first photo. I don’t recall him ever playing it – he was a furniture maker – and I can’t think of any other musical instruments he ever made.

When I checked Etsy for dulcimers, I found a lovely vintage one (pictured below) offered by Michaelstacyart in Union, NJ. It was crafted in 1975 by Jim Palmer; list price on 2-9-25 is $349.99 plus shipping, which may vary based on your location.

Beautiful.

Source: Etsy/Michaelstacyart

Intrigued by the fact there’s an entire museum dedicated to punk rock, I searched HiBid to see what punk offerings there are in the auction world.

A lot of the 75 punk listings involve some sort of clothing. One of the coolest things I found is a “Punk’s Not Dead” sticker (pictured below).

It’s being auctioned on March 1 by Heroes and Legends in Palm Desert, CA. You can bid online via HiBid; simply search for auction houses by state and look for Lot# 733 from Heroes and Legends. They charge a 25% buyer’s premium plus, of course, shipping and any applicable sales tax. They’re expecting it to sell for $25-$50, and the minimum opening bid is $10.