Located on 4th Ave. S., it’s nearly impossible to miss the stunning new 5,775-square-foot mural of concert tickets gracing the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood.
A giant love letter to Music City, the Big Tickets mural shares a bigger and often untold story of Nashville’s role in shaping multiple genres of music. From first-time visitors to locals, Big Tickets is an all-access pass to discover our city’s rich and diverse history of music-making by way of stubs from shows past.
It’s no surprise that Nashville has established itself as an integral component of the country music landscape, but as Big Tickets depicts, that role also extends into several other musical genres. A collaboration between three local teams, Adventurous Journeys (AJ) Capital Partners, Studio Delger,
and Eastside Murals, the piece is a collage of 62 real concert stubs from shows involving more than 120 artists. The tickets span from the early 1900s through the present day, mapping iconic moments in Nashville’s music history with many of those artists and shows having a connection to the very neighborhood in which the mural is located.
“Music City is the home of country music, but Nashville’s music history and current music scene both include so much more than just country music and we were excited to showcase that musical diversity across multiple genres through this public art piece,” explains Lesley Florie, SVP of Brand Identity at Adventurous Journeys. “Because the mural is in Wedgewood-Houston, we naturally started with the history of this neighborhood. One ticket led to the next, revealing this narrative about the serendipitous interactions that happened in Nashville that ultimately had an impact on music around the world.
The ticket stubs encompass a wide variety of artists, genres, decades, and venues from years past and present. Featured artists include The Allman Brothers Band, Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, Dolly Parton, Etta James, George Clinton, Guns N’ Roses, Jack White, John Prine, Loretta Lynn, Mavis Staples, Muddy Waters, Radiohead, The Rolling Stones, Run DMC, Stevie Wonder, and more.
But the story behind each of these tickets goes even deeper than the big names alone as every artist included was influenced by at least one other artist in the mural. Starting with the Fisk Jubilee Singers and artists who had a connection to the historic United Record Pressing on Wedgewood- Houston’s Chestnut St., a musical domino effect unfolded and resulted in these 62 ticket stubs that tell Music City’s impactful and interwoven story.
“Once we understood how all these artists played a role in shaping each other’s careers we decided to create this massive collage where years, genres, etc. are literally overlapping each other. The visual composition is a metaphor for the real-life melting pot of cross-genre musical talent that has always been a vital part of Nashville’s DNA.” Florie says.
For example, one of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, Ella Sheppard Moore, was interred in 1914 in the Nashville City Cemetery, which is located next door to the mural. On a panel facing the cemetery is a ticket for a 1914 Fisk Jubilee show at The Ryman. Fast forward to the 1940s, John Wesley Work III (former director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers) interviewed and recorded local musicians during a Mississippi research trip. One of those musicians was Muddy Waters, and the mural features a ticket from a 1974 show at Nashville’s Muther’s Music Emporium. The Rolling Stones found inspiration for their name in a Muddy Waters song, and a young Stevie Wonder opened for The Rolling Stones during a 1972 show included in the mural. Many of Wonder’s records were pressed at United Record Pressing on Chestnut St. That’s only the beginning of the stories Big Tickets tells.
Ticket stubs were obtained from multiple sources including antique stores, local music industry connections, fans, friends, band members, and online auctions for ticket stub collectors. Months of research was then conducted to verify each show and understand how each artist influenced one another. Visually, the mural itself was carefully designed to be just as authentic as the way in which the tickets were acquired. Eastside Murals painted every ticket seen in the mural by hand— a process that took a staggering 120 days— and worked diligently to capture the texture of these beloved real-life paper tickets that hold so many memories in each crease. This level of detail is apparent as onlookers will notice seating charts, handwriting, and even ink smudges from shows played in the pouring rain.
Every part of the creative process between AJ Capital Partners, Studio Delger, and Eastside Murals was intentional in bringing the vision of the Big Tickets mural to life. And with so many easter eggs embedded into each of the mural’s eight 50-foot panels, there’s a new piece of Music City history to discover with every glance.
“There’s a unique, nostalgic feeling baked into our favorite memories of live music performances, and we hope this mural helps to evoke some of those feelings and stir people’s memories of shows they’ve seen,” says Tim Delger, Founder and Creative Director of Studio Delger. “You’ll never tell Nashville’s music story with just one mural, but we love how this piece incorporates some of the history from the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood.”