The Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville occupies a posh, ultramodern building that vaguely reminds you of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Vaguely, mind you. You enter a huge, airy lobby with a long staircase that spirals up to a second-floor exhibit area. On the walls of the central rotunda are hundreds of bronze plaques, each describing one of the many members of the Hall of Fame. Some of the bronze portraits are easy to recognize. Others are not, and you must read the biographical inscriptions to learn who they are. The bronze plaques, their portraits and inscriptions, tell the story in formal and stately fashion of Ferlin Huskey, Tammy Wynette, Grandpa Jones, Faron Young, the Statler Brothers, and hundreds of others, famous and obscure. The words “May the Circle Be Unbroken,” inscribed in stone at the base of the domed ceiling, encircle the room. It is all very serious.

The exhibits in the Country Music Hall of Fame, all neatly contained behind glass showcases or displayed on large digital television screens, offer a compact but impressive summary of the history of country music (bluegrass, honky-tonk, cowboy, country and western, hillbilly, what have you). It is definitely worth a visit if you’re in the vicinity, especially if you’re a fan of country music or any of its cognates.

The high-tech sheen and glamour of the museum, typical of the compulsion of the country music world to over-hype itself, belies the humble origins of many of the individuals it celebrates. On the third floor, a permanent series of exhibits, arranged more or less chronologically, trace the development of country music from its folk and blues and Appalachian roots and the early days of Jimmie Rodgers to the beginnings of the Grand Old Opry to Hank Williams to the rise of rockabilly (Carl Perkins, Conway Twitty, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, the astounding Wanda Jackson) to the present day. Musical instruments, vintage posters, costumes, pictures and other memorabilia provide tangible evidence of the people and music. As the years covered by the exhibits pass, the costumes evolve from modest and subtly colored affairs to cowboy attire to brightly colored and flamboyant costumes covered with sequins and rhinestones.

I was fascinated with the musical instruments: they are displayed in every part of the museum. There is case after case of them. Many are beautiful, exquisitely tooled and crafted instruments. It is difficult not to imagine the banjos and guitars and mandolins and keyboards in motion, in use, held and being played by the musicians. They remind you that despite all the glitz and tawdry displays of loony fashion and behavior, country music celebrities were often truly accomplished musicians. Music is playing everywhere in the museum, from listening booths, display cases, television screens and speaker systems. You are not allowed to forget - nor should you forget - that the music is the point of it all.

The first and second floors include Ray Charles, George Jones, Ray Price and Earl Scruggs exhibits. The tribute to Charles is thorough and comprehensive, focusing especially on his contributions to country music, crediting him with reviving country music and restoring its credibility when he recorded the concept album Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music in 1962 (this is touched on in the film Ray). The exhibit makes clear that Charles was a beloved presence in the studios and television shows of many country music singers. It does not make so clear that his breakthrough was a significant moment in American race relations - a breakthrough that country music had to permit in order to remain relevant and viable in a changing American society.

The exhibits are intelligently arranged and displayed. The explanatory inscriptions are well written and informative. They are aimed at hero worshippers as well as at people who want to learn about an American musical tradition. In telling that story, they manage to tell much more about the 20th century and its history: two world wars, the Depression, the growth of radio and television, the development of mass culture.

The Hall of Fame gives you a very real sense of the culture of country music, a tradition that developed independently of Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood, always lingering on the margins, never entirely comfortable with itself either inside or outside the mainstream. This discomfort manifested in outlandish costumes, inflated hair, gaudy cars and homes, obsessive self-promotion. It is also evident in country music’s insistence that its own political conservatism and representation of basic American values somehow places it closer to the heart of the average man and woman than Broadway and Hollywood. This is one of the themes of Robert Altman’s 1976 film Nashville, which lampooned the country music industry and is definitely not represented in the Country Music Hall of Fame, though many of the individuals it satirizes are enshrined there.

These exhibits argue strongly that country music is a rich, oft-maligned, too frequently overlooked tradition in our national heritage. This is not to say that the Country Music Hall of Fame makes a point of showing you the downsides. For the most part, you don’t learn about the failed marriages, drug abuse, alcoholism and shameless competitiveness, the gluttonous cravings for fame and wealth and power, the false pieties, compromise, corruption and jingoism. But what you do see is of interest nonetheless.

The odds and ends in the museum are interesting as well. We see Braille copies of Playboy and Reader’s Digest owned by Ray Charles. I suppose he really must have read the articles. We see a 1944 photograph of a 12-year-old George Jones playing guitar for money on the streets of Beaumont, TX. We see from much later in his life a baby-blue suit emblazoned with jugs of moonshine, designed in tribute, so I am told, to the song “White Lightnin’” that Jones made famous. A glass showcase chronicles the Porter Wagoner/ Dolly Parton partnership in the late 1960s and 1970s. Wagoner's hair is astounding.

Two Cadillac must-sees in the museum: Webb Pierce’s Cadillac, with steer horns on the front grill, pistols for door handles, rifles for hood ornaments and trim, horseshoes for gas and brake pedals, intricately-tooled leather interior with silver-dollar highlights (150 silver dollars). It is an overwhelming visual assault.

Elvis Presley’s 1960 Cadillac is painted with 40 coats of “pure diamond dust pearl which consists of crushed diamonds and pure fish scales from the Orient rubbed to a mirror-like luster.” At least so the sign next to the car claims. Inside are a solid gold television, refreshment bar, record changer and a golden telephone connecting the back seat to the front seat, three feet away. The Cadillac shines faintly with a hypnotic, numinous glow. Less impressive, but still worthy of consideration, is the gold-paint piano that Priscilla Presley gave the King on their first wedding anniversary.

As we gaze at a huge wall of gold albums on one side of the museum’s second floor, I experience a strange and funny temporal dislocation. My son, who grew up in the age of CDs and MP3 files, peering closely at the albums, asks me whether the LPs had music on both sides. His friend asks why there are occasional gaps separating the grooves on the LPs. I feel very old.

Old Smiley