Country Music Hall of Fame(R) and Museum to Explore Nashville's Pioneering and Influential R&B HistoryJohnny Jones Electric guitar and amplifier. Photo by Bob Delevante for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Nashville’s pioneering R&B scene and its important role in the city becoming a world-renowned music center with its latest exhibition. Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues Revisitedis a 20th anniversary edition of the museum’s award-winning original exhibit, which was featured in its galleries March 2004 through December 2005. The exhibit will include many of the same items and themes, as well as recently discovered artifacts and photographs. The exhibit, which is included with museum admission, opens Friday, April 26, and runs through September 2025.

Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues Revisited explores Nashville’s R&B activity in the decades following World War II, spanning 1945-1970. As Nashville’s country music industry was just getting started, the city was also a hotbed for R&B, with celebrated performers contributing to the community’s rich musical heritage, including Country Music Hall of Fame member Ray Charles, Hank Crawford, Bobby Hebb, Jimi Hendrix, Etta James and Little Richard, among many others. During this time, R&B reigned alongside country music in the city’s clubs and studios, on radio and on nationally syndicated television.

The exhibit is supported by a free-to-access Night Train to Nashville online exhibit, which launched last year and was made possible by a major grant awarded from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The exhibit is also supplemented by a newly published companion book and an opening weekend program examining the influential television show "Night Train."

“This exhibit and its related resources offer opportunities to revisit Nashville’s often overlooked R&B legacy and its important role in our community becoming ‘Music City,’” said Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. “As Nashville developed into a major recording center, it did so against a background of urban change and at a time when racial barriers were tested and sometimes broken on bandstands, inside recording studios and on the airwaves.”

The exhibit will explore:

The ways that iconic musicians including Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix honed their skills on Nashville bandstands.

How Nashville led the way in broadcasting groundbreaking and influential R&B on the50,000-watt powerhouse WLAC radio station and through syndicated TV shows such as “Night Train” and “The!!!!Beat.”

The musical collaborations of R&B and country musicians.

The recording of Etta James’s scorching live album Etta James Rocks the House at Nashville’s New Era Club.

Key developments of the late 1960s, from the soaring height of Robert Knight’s R&B-pop crossover hit “Everlasting Love” (recorded in Nashville), to the depths of so-called “urban renewal” and the routing of Interstate 40 through Jefferson Street, which eventually devastated the city’s vibrant R&B nightlife.

Some artifacts to be displayed include:

Gibson ES-345 electric guitar and Lab Series L7 amplifier used by Johnny Jones in the later part of his career. Nashville’s premier blues guitarist, Jones performed in the house band on “Night Train” and “The!!!!Beat” and influenced Jimi Hendrix in the early 1960s.

Letter sent by blues singer Bessie Smith to Hatch Show Print in 1927, accompanied by a photograph to use for designing her posters.

Etta James-signed cover of Etta James Rocks the House, recorded in September 1963 at Nashville’s New Era Club.

Three-piece suit worn onstage by vocalist and bandleader Jimmy Church. A Nashville native who recorded with an R&B group while still in high school, Church was regularly featured on television shows “Night Train” and “The!!!!Beat.”

Spoons used by Bobby Hebb as percussion instruments and Hebb’s Gibson JS-200 guitar. Hebb, a Nashville native, wrote and recorded the million-selling crossover hit “Sunny,” and performed on the Grand Ole Opry in the early 1950s as a member of Country Music Hall of Fame member Roy Acuff’s band.

Hand-painted bandstand used by star saxophonist and bandleader Hank Crawford in the 1960s.

Several original Hatch Show Print posters from the 1950s and 1960s advertising appearances by Gene Allison, Earl Gaines, Little Willie John, Jackie Shane, Joe Tex and others.

A scrapbook of vintage photographs belonging to Nashville entertainer Frank Howard.

Exhibit companion book 

In support of the exhibit, the museum is publishing a companion book, “Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues Revisited.” The book includes a foreword by Nashville entertainer Frank Howard and explores the themes and stories in the exhibit. It also features more than 100 photographs and descriptions of classic R&B records cut in Nashville.

The book is now available to preorder on the museum’s website and will be available April 26 to purchase in the museum’s store or on its website. The book will also be available in bookstores nationwide through a distribution partnership with the University of Illinois Press. 

Online exhibit

The free-to-access online exhibit, Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970, revisits, updates and preserves the museum’s original physical exhibit of the same name, which was featured in the museum’s galleries 20 years ago.

The multimedia exhibit showcases a vast array of historic photos, performance videos and audio recordings, as well as instruments, show posters, stage wear and other rare items featured in the original exhibit. Online visitors can also access a full video archive of public programs hosted by the museum in relation to the original Night Train to Nashville exhibit and Nashville’s R&B history, including concerts, panel discussions and more.

Opening weekend program

To mark the opening of the exhibit, the museum will host a panel discussion on Saturday, April 27, about Nashville’s groundbreaking television series “Night Train.” Participants will include performers Jimmy Church and Frank Howard, who appeared regularly on the show, along with Katie Blackwell (wife of late “Night Train” creator and host, Noble Blackwell) and Tracye Blackwell (daughter of Katie and Noble Blackwell). The discussion will be illustrated with video clips from “Night Train.” The program will happen at 2:30 p.m. in the museum’s Ford Theater. 

Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues Revisited will also be supported by additional public programs during the exhibit’s run, presented in collaboration with other nonprofit partners.

The original Night Train to Nashville exhibit earned the museum a Bridging the Gap Award (2006)­­ from the Nashville chapter of the NAACP for the promotion of interracial understanding. The exhibit’s companion album of the same name received a Grammy award for Best Historical Album (2004). Throughout the exhibit’s run, the museum produced a pair of retrospective compilation albums, published three books, and hosted dozens of panel discussions and concerts in support of the exhibit.

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Bluesky launches Ozone, a tool that lets users create and run their own independent moderation servicesDecentralized Twitter/X rival Bluesky announced today that it’s open sourcing Ozone, a tool that lets individuals and teams collaboratively review and label content on the network. The company plans to open up the ability for individuals and teams to run their own independent moderation services later this week, which means users will be able to subscribe […]
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Save up to 50% on VSL string libraries Products across both the Synchron Series and Synchron-ized Series are currently subject to some generous pricing offers.

Playing Audio on The Pi Pico With No DAC To Speak OfNormally, if you want to play music or other audio on a microcontroller, you need to get yourself a DAC. Or at least, that’s the easiest way to go about it and the one most likely to get you good, intelligible audio. You don’t have to go that way, though, as [antirez] demonstrates.
[antirez] decided to do this with a Pi Pico, but it’s applicable to other microcontrollers too. It’s all done with a single pin and a PWM output. The PWM output is set to a very high frequency beyond human hearing. In this case, it was 100 KHz. Then, the duty cycle of the PWM is changed to essentially output various average voltage levels at the pin. Vary the output voltage as per your desired sound file by using each sample to vary the duty cycle of the PWM. Voila! You can output whatever sound you want on that pin! [antirez] steps through the basics of doing this, including processing simple WAV files into a raw format that can be dumped into MicroPython code.
There’s no sound sample on the project page, and we’d have to assume it sounds pretty crunchy when hooked up to a speaker. And yet, it could prove a useful technique if you’re designing your own audio greeting cards or something, so keep that in mind!

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LED Choker Is a Diamond In the Junk PileIsn’t it great when you find a use for something that didn’t work out for the project it was supposed to? That’s the story behind the LED strips in this lovely blinkenlights choker by [Ted].
The choker itself is a 15 mm wide leather strap with holes punched in it. According to [Ted], the hole punching sounds like the absolute worst and hardest part to do, because the spacing of the holes must be greater than that of the LEDs to account for flex in the strap. [Ted] tested several distances and found that there is little margin for error.
Controlling those blinkenlights is a Seeed Xiao S3, which fits nicely behind the neck in what looks like a heat shrink tube cocoon. [Ted] chose this because there was one lying around, and it happens to be a good fit with its LiPo charge controller.
The choker runs on four 300 mAh LiPo batteries, which makes for more bulk than [Ted] would like, but again, sometimes it’s about what you have lying around. Even so, the batteries last around two hours.
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iZotope’s revived distortion plugin is Trash – no, seriouslyiZotope has revived a fan favourite plugin, and it’s Trash. Literally. The iconic distortion tool, Trash, first introduced in 2003, is back and boasts a set of new upgrades to offer a “whole new take on the joy of breaking things”.
Trash is now available as a desktop plugin and for use on iPad with Logic Pro using the AUv3 format. Both versions also include a new Trash Lite mode which is completely free.

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“Trash takes sound into new dimensions with unlimited ways to twist, mangle, and energise music,” says iZotope. The plugin now features an easy-to-use interface, and is driven by two engines: the Trash and Convolve modules.
The Trash module includes over 60 distortion types for subtle distortion all the way to “full-on sonic mutation”. Convolve, on the other hand, comes with over 600 impulse responses to morph and filter your sound, such as tin cans, piano cabinets, reversed reverbs, and underwater recordings.
Both modules include an “intuitive” XY pad, allowing you to blend between either four distortion algorithms, or four impulse responses. Other new features include an Envelope Follower, a Dice Roll button for inspiration, and a Scream filter. Trash also utilises intelligent auto-gain and limiter settings on your output levels.
Take a look below:

A few creatives have already got their hands on Trash, but seemingly the reviews are mixed. iZotope have a high standard to live up to following the well-loved Trash2, which landed nearly a decade on from the original Trash in 2012. Weaver Beats has given his thoughts on the new plugin in a two-hour long Twitch stream, while Low End Candy says he’s not so sure on the new version of the tool, but came to like it after playing around with some of its features. See his video below.

Use Trash for free via the Trash Lite mode, or you can purchase the full edition now via iZotope. Trash for desktop is priced at £95/$99 (with an introductory price of $79 through 16 April 2024), and at £19.99/$19.99 for iPad via the App Store.
The post iZotope’s revived distortion plugin is Trash – no, seriously appeared first on MusicTech.

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In the extremely limited drop, just 20 units were made available and sold like hot cakes. It’s clear there’s a huge demand for a full production run of this black edition, but only time will tell whether or not the brand will be offering it a full-time position among its lineup of other gear.

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It seems this limited version packs in all the same features, including four hybrid voices (digital sound engine and analogue multimode filter with overdrive), eight controls per voice, external trigger inputs for each voice, and individual voice outputs.
It also has individual FX sends and returns, a master FX send and return, and modulation LFO with morphing waveforms, with up to eight modulation destinations per voice.

The black version was priced higher than the original (€1800.00 rather than €1700.00), and showcased side panels crafted from hand picked wood, engraved using the Lichtenburg burning method.
“The timelessly black finish of Pērkons HD-01 matches our other instruments and visually complements the dark aesthetic that has become synonymous with Erica Synths modules and desktop instruments all over the world,” the brand states on its website.
“What truly sets these side panels apart is the mesmerising Lichtenburg burning method employed in their creation. This technique, named after the physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, involves applying high-voltage electricity to the wood’s surface, resulting in striking patterns reminiscent of lightning strikes.
“The method has gained notoriety due to numerous incidents of death and severe injuries when people have attempted it at home, with at least 33 people having died between 2017 and 2022. Pērkons HD-01 engraved side panels have been hand-made by Sandis Vāgners in the deep woods of Latvia. To prevent his certain death during the engraving process Erica Synths developed a special emergency power cut circuit.”
You can shop the original Pērkons HD-01 now via Erica Synths.
The post Drooling over this limited-edition black Erica Synths Pērkons HD-01? Too bad – it’s already sold out appeared first on MusicTech.

iZotope revive Trash distortion plug-in iZotope's distortion plug-in has returned with desktop and iPad versions, and also offers a Lite mode that can be enjoyed for free on all platforms.

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iZotope Releases FREE Trash Lite Distortion Plugin
iZotope released Trash Lite, a freeware distortion plugin based on the new commercial plugin called Trash (€109). Now, if you’ve been around VST plugins for a while, you’re probably already familiar with iZotope Trash. It’s a legendary distortion plugin and one of iZotope’s flagship products before the age of Ozone and other currently popular tools. [...]
View post: iZotope Releases FREE Trash Lite Distortion Plugin

Somerville Sounds Releases FREE Rubber Bridge Guitar Virtual Instrumet
Rubber Bridge Plucks is an acoustic guitar sample-based virtual instrument from Somerville Sounds that can be yours for FREE.  As a longtime guitarist, I will say that I always give virtual guitar instruments a shot. I have friends who do absolute magic using Shreddage and other libraries, so it’s always interesting to see what’s on [...]
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