WKU News

Are you a collector of South-Central Kentucky’s music history?

The Kentucky Museum is calling on the community to assist with their upcoming exhibition, Sonic Landscape, which explores the diverse genres and styles that make our region – and its hub, Bowling Green – a site of musical exchange and collaboration. Opening in Spring 2025, this exhibit explores the lives and legacies of SOKY’s musical talent and the ecosystem – from rivers and rails to record stores and DIY recording studios – that fostered them.

The Museum is seeking artifacts, photographs, posters, documents, and associated items related to musicians, venues, radio stations, and the general music scene of Warren, Barren, Allen, Simpson, Butler, Edmonson, Hart, and Metcalfe counties between the 1940s and 1990s.

The Museum is also hoping to locate and secure objects associated with the above, especially those used by musicians while touring, such as mementos, scrapbooks, binders, and other items of personal significance to the musicians and their fans. A list of performers, venues, and other themes of focus in the exhibition’s development can be found here.

Finally, the Museum is also interested in recreating a DIY Recording Studio of the 1970s, like those once established in Bowling Green. If you or someone you know has equipment or related objects that may assist in making this vision come to life, please submit the form linked below.

How to Contribute

Options for contributing to the exhibition include (1) loaning items for us to undertake high-resolution scans with originals returned to the donor and/or (2) long-term loan for the exhibition and/or (3) donation to the Kentucky Museum. How you contribute is up to you.

To offer items, please complete and submit the form located at the bottom of this webpage. The exhibition’s curatorial team will review and contact you with next steps.

For questions, please contact Exhibits Curator Tiffany Isselhardt at tiffany.isselhardt@wku.edu or 270-745-3369.

Pictured: Local music legends, Tommy Starr (at left) and Kenny Lee (blue shirt), work with Kentucky Museum staff to scan ephemera on the South-Central Kentucky music scene.