Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Opens ‘Grit and Glory: The Photography of Lawson Little’

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, has opened a brand new pictures exhibition spanning the profession of Lawson Little. Grit and Glory: The Photography of Lawson Little debuted Sept. 12, 2026, within the museum’s first-floor gallery and can run by means of August 2027. Admission is free.

The exhibit traces Little’s work from Nineteen Seventies pictures of Grand Ole Opry performers and Nashville honky-tonks to Americana portraits from the early 2000s. It combines backstage and efficiency pictures, documenting a long time of nation music’s evolving scene by means of candid and staged photographs of outstanding figures within the style.

Featured pictures embrace Tammy Wynette and the duo Jim & Jesse backstage on the Ryman Auditorium, Tootsie Bess and employees at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, and Roy Acuff performing a yo-yo trick onstage. Other pictures seize Dwight Yoakam and Rodney Crowell at Exit/In and Billy Joe Shaver on the Grand Ole Opry. Little’s broader physique of labor has additionally included topics comparable to Ralph Stanley, Roy Rogers, Shel Silverstein, Raul Malo, and Dave Alvin.

Little studied pictures on the Rhode Island School of Design earlier than constructing a profession capturing musicians for industrial initiatives in Southern California and Nashville. Between 1997 and 2012, he photographed tons of of performers, capturing a lot of the fabric featured within the exhibition. He later relocated to Pensacola, Florida.

The exhibition provides to the museum’s ongoing documentation of nation music historical past and joins its rotating lineup of galleries exploring the style’s artists and eras. It is housed alongside the museum’s different present exhibitions, providing guests further context on the visible historical past of nation and Americana music.

Visitors can view Grit and Glory: The Photography of Lawson Little for gratis throughout common museum hours within the first-floor gallery. A full calendar of museum exhibitions and associated programming is on the market on-line for these searching for extra details about present and upcoming reveals.