The Lower Broadway building previously housing the legendary Ernest Tubb Record Shops retail business is slated to be reinvented with a bar and live music venue.
The owners of the three-story structure are Nashville real estate investor Brad Bars, attorney Blake Bars (Brad’s brother), Dale Tubb (Tubb’s grandson) and Ilya Toshinskiy, a Russian-born and locally based musician. They paid $18.3 million for the property, located at 417 Broadway, in July 2022.
The Metro Planning Commission on March 14 will hear a request for final site plan approval for the proposed four-level bar and live music venue. The existing building offers three stories, with a rooftop component proposed.
The owners of the building will lease to Tusk Brothers Entertainment. That entity comprises Jamie Kenney and Bryan Kenney, who are known for East Nashville’s Reunion Bar and Hotel and Wedgewood-Houston bar Never Never.
Jamie Kenney, who also works as a music producer and songwriter, tells Scene sister publication the Nashville Post the team is not ready to announce when the business could open. A name has not been finalized, he adds.
“Our hope is to have a honky-tonk that will pay tribute to the legacy of Ernest Tubb and the record shop,” he says. “We love who Ernest Tubb was and what he meant to Nashville’s music history.”
Kenney says the interior vibe of the future business will be similar to many of the interiors found in Lower Broadway's other live music venues. Nashville’s Clements Wimsatt Architects is handling design.
Kenney says the team is working with the Metro Historical Commission related to the effort.
The seller in the mid-2022 transaction was an LLC affiliated with JesseLee Jones, who has owned Lower Broadway’s Robert’s Western World and its building for about 25 years and is a member of roots music group Brazilbilly, the house band at Robert’s. In August 2020, Jones bought both the Tubb building and the record shop business for $4.75 million from long-time friend David McCormick.
New owners include local developer, Tubb relative, Russian-born musician
For context, McCormick acquired the building and the 0.08-acre parcel on which it sits in 1992 for $128,000.
Ernest Tubb Record Shops ("shops" is often seen spelled as "shop") began operations in 1947 and closed after the 2022 deal, after having been located at the Broadway site since 1951. The store specialized in hard-to-find CDs, DVDs, books, songbooks and vinyl LPs.
Toshinskiy has recorded with Keith Urban, Kenny Rogers, The Judds, Blake Shelton, George Strait, Brooks & Dunn, Steven Tyler and Thomas Rhett, among others. Born in Obninsk, Russia, he is proficient on both guitar and banjo and is known, in part, for his bluegrass work.
A singer and songwriter, Ernest Dale Tubb was also known as the Texas Troubadour and was considered a country music heavy-hitter. He died in Nashville in 1984.
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
