Glamor, glitter and Nudie suits

Much of what we think of in relation to country music is the result of the genius of a Ukrainian immigrant named Nuta Kotlyarenko, the man behind the Nudie Suit, the Cowboy Hardware outfits, that garish, embroidered, sequined, rhinestoned outfit that comes to mind when you think of Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzel or Dottie West.

We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame on Thursday. Right there in downtown Nashville, it’s a monument to the music that made Nashville the mecca it is today–you go to Beale Street in Memphis for blues, Broadway in Nashville for Country. There’s a reason American has daily non-stops from LA to BNA (Nashville airport)–the music business is commuting between the two.

Back to the Nudie suits. The Hall of Fame has lots of them–they have chosen to represent the great artists of Country by the clothes they wore and the instruments they played, and it works very well. Gail thought that there was too much talk and not enough music in the displays and the museum was not as pleasing as the Rock and Soul Museum in Memphis, which is largely true, but I enjoyed it still.

I thought I’d give you a gallery of the clothing, and a car Nudie created for Webb Pierce. You can get an awfully good idea of what the museum is about from these: