Lorenzo Washington, who preserved Jefferson Street's musical heritage, dies at 83
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Lorenzo Washington. Photo: Courtesy of Jefferson Street Sound Museum
Lorenzo Washington, who worked tirelessly to preserve Jefferson Street's iconic music history, died this week at the age of 83.
Washington launched the independent nonprofit Jefferson Street Sound Museum in 2011 to celebrate the thoroughfare's unparalleled place in U.S. music history.
- Jefferson Street was Nashville's original Music Row, lined with live music venues where Black musicians would regularly perform.
Venues like the Del Morocco Club, the New Era and Club Stealaway lined the road where touring artists like Ray Charles and BB King would perform and local legends like Marion James and Jimmy Church would cut their teeth.
- Washington grew up going to those clubs. Though he wasn't a musician or a music industry professional by trade, he launched small, independent record labels releasing hip-hop, gospel and R&B music.
His first foray into telling Jefferson Street's story was a music genealogy tree, which showed the many music venues once located there and the famous artists who performed in them.
- The museum is lined with club posters, newspaper articles and other priceless music relics. Everyone from schoolchildren to music lovers and older Nashvillians who grew up going to concerts at the clubs would visit the museum.
- Earlier this year, the museum was added to the national Civil Rights Trail.
One of Jefferson Street's most famous tales is a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix briefly playing in the backing band for rock pioneer Little Richard.
Washington was a wealth of knowledge because he was there, and because he was passionate about keeping the history alive.
- In 2025, the International Blues Society awarded Washington the prestigious Keeping the Blues Alive award.
- The Nashville Scene gave him the Best Culture Specialty Museum award in 2019.
- Last year, Mayor Freddie O'Connell lauded Washington as a "living legend" for his historic preservation.
He told the Tennessean in 2013: "You're talking about a scene that is so vitally important, not just to Jefferson Street, but to our city and our culture."
"Lorenzo opened his own home in 2011 so that Jefferson Street would never be forgotten," the National Museum of African American Music posted on Instagram.
- "Through the Jefferson Street Sound Museum, he preserved the photographs, instruments, and stories of a North Nashville corridor where Jimi Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, Jackie Shane, and hundreds of local artists made music history."