NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Nashville is known all over the world as Music City. It’s the city’s identity and the official brand. The city’s reputation also draws an untold number of people every year trying to find success in the music industry.
“Music is a $20 billion industry in Nashville and it defines Nashville’s personality,” says Ralph Schulz, the President and CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber’s extensive Music Industry Report, released in 2020, shows 41,153 people in the Nashville area are employed within Music & Entertainment as an economic cluster. Another 17,255 people are indirectly employed by the industry, while 22,348 have jobs that are considered an ‘induced effect’ of the industry and accommodate the presence of music as an industry. The total impact, based on research from the Chamber, is an estimated total of 80,757 jobs from the economic impact of Nashville’s Music and Entertainment industry.
“This is such a creative place and music is the absolute heart of that,” says Schulz.
Nashville is home to more than 190 recording studios, thousands of working musicians, and live music every night of the week. The region’s concentration of musicians and music businesses is the highest in the nation with music industry activity as much as 30 times greater than the national average and more than 10 times greater than New York or Los Angeles, according to the Chamber’s Research Center.
“People know that Nashville is the pinnacle of music success,” says Schulz. “Everyone in the music industry is taking big risks every day and they also know they’re not in it alone.”
Nashville’s history as a city of music began in the 1800s when it became a national center for music publishing, according to Visit Music City. The Fisk Jubilee Singers educated formerly enslaved people and put Nashville on the map as a global music center. It’s reportedly said that after playing for the Queen of England, the Queen stated the Fisk Jubilee Singers must come from a “City of Music.”
The city’s musical history was cemented when radio station WSM launched a broadcast in 1925 that would be called the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry is America’s longest-running radio show, in continuous production for more than 100 years.
“Nashville is a place that you can feel success in the air,” says Schulz.
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