Nashville Scene: Hall Of Fame Teams With Country.com For Net Presence; Notable New Year's Shows

ON THE ROW: The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has been considering for some time a means of going online with its considerable research archives: some 200,000 phonograph records, 60,000 photographs, 5,000 films and videotapes, thousands of posters, books, sheet music, periodicals, and hundreds of hours of taped interviews.
Now, it's going into partnership with country.com, the World Wide Web site for the CMT and TNN cable networks. The pairing will also ultimately provide an E-commerce outlet for the hall's own products, such as records, books, and magazines.
"It was a natural partnership," Hall of Fame acting director Kyle Young tells Nashville Scene. "And it's an important deal for us. We knew we needed an Internet presence, and what struck me about country.com is their track record. What is unique about them is their tremendous marketing engine with CMT and TNN. Since we're content people, we didn't want to try to build a site or get cash to build one. You can really hurt yourself on the Net if you're not careful."
In addition to making its research facility available online worldwide to scholars and country fans alike, Young says, the hall can sell its products via the Net. "We're well-positioned," he notes. "Our product line is a perfect niche market for country.com. Our little record label [CMF Records] is unique and synonymous with the hall. We can get our brand in front of millions of people. This will also allow us to create "sitelets,' or little sites to promote the museum's activities."
Meanwhile, progress on the new downtown Country Music Hall of Fame has been delayed for a year due to slow fund raising. Total cost for the facility will be approximately $37 million. The present capital campaign goal is $15 million, and Young says he wants to have $12 million in the bank before groundbreaking. "We've got $10 million on hand now," Young says, "and the other $2 [million] could come in any day now. You may see some dirt moving down there real soon. We'll be open in early 2001."
New Year's Eve shows of note: Merle Haggard at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth, Texas; a Foster & Lloyd reunion at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville; and Tim McGraw, the Wilkinsons, and Dixie Chicks at the Nashville Arena.
After a 25-year absence, the Grand Ole Opry will return to its former home, the Ryman Auditorium, for two nights. The Opry, which left the Ryman for Opryland March 16, 1974, will return there for shows Jan. 15-16. The Ryman seats about 2,000, as opposed to about 4,400 at the Opry House.
PEOPLE: Elroy Kahanek is named executive VP at Bang Records II, reporting to chairman Ilene Berns. Former executive VP Larry King exits the label . . . Arista/Nashville promotes David Macias to senior director of sales and marketing, reporting to VP Rick Shedd . . . Giant Records names Fred H. Baker Jr. product manager, reporting to senior VP Connie Baer . . . Gary Chapman signs with TBA Entertainment Corp. for management . . . Grand Ole Opry Group president Steve Buchanan names Paul Couch GM of the Ryman Auditorium. Couch was events manager at the Ryman . . . Trey Bruce signs with Big Tractor Music.
City Hall Records, Hep Cat Distribution, and Record Depot will handle distribution for HighTone Records' HMG imprint as of Jan. 4. Releases for next year include albums from Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, and Wayne Hancock band spinoff Biller & Wakefield.