Top Kentucky Music Tourism Destinations

From the bright lights of bigger cities like Lexington and Louisville to the hollers of Eastern Kentucky, music history can be found everywhere you look around the Commonwealth. Read on for suggestions for some of the state’s best attractions so you can start getting tuned into your next adventure.

Bluegrass Music Hall Of Fame & Museum

The roots of bluegrass music can be found along the banks of the Ohio River in Owensboro at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum, which not only houses artifacts from a century of string music, but also regularly hosts pickin’ parties, concerts and other events to engage with the community. Of these, its banner event is ROMP, a music festival taking place at nearby Yellow Creek Park annually since 2003 that draws thousands of fans each day when it takes place near the end of June.

However, bluegrass origins run deeper than just Owensboro. About an hour south in Ohio County you’ll find all things related to the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe, from a museum in his honor that contains everything from old outfits to the Cadillac that remained his daily driver all the way up to his death in 1996 to his burial site and the home he grew up in, offering a full spectrum look at the luminary’s life in the process.

US 23 Country Music Highway Museum

Eastern Kentucky is known for producing more country music singers per capita than anywhere else with names like Loretta Lynn, Wynonna & Naomi Judd, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tom T. Hall, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam, Gary Stewart, Patty Loveless, Crystal Gayle and more all being born out of its hills.

To celebrate that legacy, a bill passed in March 1994 renamed the U.S. 23 highway that cuts through the area as the “Country Music Highway”, and soon after the Country Music Highway was formed to further shine a light on the abundance of local talent. Since its launch, the museum has gone on to include even more artists among its ranks, from Sundy Best to Tyler Childers and Chris Stapleton as the region’s penchant for producing honky tonk singers shows no signs of slowing down.

For an even greater education on the beginnings of artists in the area, less than a half hour away you’ll find Butcher Hollow, the childhood home of Loretta Lynn, in Van Lear. The humble abode continues to be operated by Lynn’s family, who offer tours that serve up a sobering and inspiring glimpse into the country star’s upbringing as a “Coal Miner’s Daughter”.

Kentucky Music Hall Of Fame & Museum

While the two previously mentioned museums focus on bluegrass and Eastern Kentucky music, respectively, the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Mount Vernon opts for a more macro approach, instead celebrating all of the state’s music legends — regardless of region, musical genre or any other factors. With new classes being inducted bi-annually (during even years) the museum is always growing and bringing in new items to view. And with songwriter rounds, blues festivals and other events held at the facility throughout the year, there’s ample opportunity to make a return visit to see what’s fresh in the display cases.

Just down the road from the Hall of Fame sits Renfro Valley, a historic structure that started hosting and broadcasting barn dances in the late 1930’s that, in its early days, rivaled the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Even nearly 90 years on from its inception, the venue continues to host some of country music’s biggest stars, ​​making Renfro Valley one of the longest continuously operating music venues in America.

Muhlenberg Music Museum

This museum in Central City honors Muhlenberg County trailblazers like Merle Travis, The Everly Brothers and John Prine, the latter of whom is also immortalized nearby with the John Prine Memorial Park at Rochester Dam, a reference to the Illinois’ born singer’s timeless song “Paradise” that continues to be covered by artists from Kentucky and beyond to this day.

All Roads Lead To Lexington

Despite Kentucky’s music talent being spread throughout the Commonwealth, all creative roads lead to Lexington. The city in the heart of horse country is home to several broadcast programs, performance venues, festivals and talent that operate as the oil keeping the state’s musical engine running.

Of those, radio programs like Red Barn Radio (Wednesdays at 7 p.m. ET inside ArtsPlace) and Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour (Mondays at 7 p.m. ET inside Scottish Rite) have been responsible for bringing the soundtrack of Kentucky to a worldwide audience and giving early momentum to the careers of Ben Sollee and Tyler Childers — the latter of whom released a Live On Red Barn Radio II And II album in 2016 — among others.

Then there’s venues like The Burl, which opened in 2016 as a music venue and has since expanded its campus to include a food kitchen, retro-style game arcade and brewery. Hosting close to 300 shows annually, the club in Lexington’s Distillery District has evolved into one of the city’s most desired hangout spots over the past decade.

If blues is your thing, then a stop at Kentucky Music Hall of Famer Tee Dee Young’s bar on Monday nights is a must. On those nights the guitar God takes the stage with his backing band and anyone else who wants to join him on stage. The magic at these shows is incredible and you never know who will show up — even folks like Tyler Childers have made surprise appearances in the past!

But Lexington’s most prominent music gathering is without a doubt the Railbird Festival, which launched at Keeneland in 2019 and now attracts over 40,000 people a day to its new host site, the Red Mile, every year during the first weekend of June. Everyone from the aforementioned Childers to Chris Stapleton, Lainey Wilson and Hozier have headlined the mega-event, which also combines Kentucky’s equine and bourbon culture to create a one-of-a-kind experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else.