Like the Lower East Side of Manhattan was to punk rock and Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco was to 1960's psychedelia, the Lower Broad area of Nashville was a hothouse for Country sound. The Lower Broadway area of Nashville was and continues to be the proving ground for many of country music's greatest. From Hank Williams Sr. to Willie Nelson to BR5-49, the Lower Broad holds the stories of country music in its aging landscape. Part scrapbook, part bar tour, Nashville's Lower Broad: The Street That Music Made is a visual history capturing 90 gritty and revealing duotone photographs of the people and places that made Nashville's Lower Broadway the legendary country music birthplace and proving ground that continues to thrive today. With a foreword by Lucinda Williams and an introduction by music journalist David Eason, the photography of Bill Rouda brings to life the late nights, the cheap drinks, the isolated evenings where music, thoughts, and the company of strangers collide. Nashville's Lower Broad is a story longing to be told and Bill Rouda's photography does just that.

(Now available online, through your local bookstore or from Smithsonian Books.)