Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, the Nashville Cats, et al. turn the music world upside down.

• Position: Museums Today - Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City

BOB DYLAN, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, The Byrds. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Joan Baez, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, J.J. Cale, Linda Ronstadt. Leon Russell, Gordon Lightfoot, Steve Miller, Ian & Sylvia, The Monkees, and Simon & Garfunkel were among the many rock and folk artists who came to Nashville, Tenn., in the late 1960s and early 1970s to work with the city's versatile, hotshot session musicians, the Nashville Cats.

Dylan's decision to record in Nashville provided a major catalyst in bringing many others to what must have seemed a very unlikely destination in the politically polarized 1960s. In spite of its reputation among hipsters as a conservative town, removed from the main trends in popular music, Nashville, in fact, was home to musicians who had a huge influence on other music scenes of the era, including those of New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London.

"Nashville has always been a more nuanced music center than it commonly gets credit for.... This exhibit is a great opportunity to talk about the early confluence of country and rock," says Kyle Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. "Dylan recorded 'Blonde on Blonde,' 'John Wesley Harding,' and 'Nashville Skyline' here. The Byrds made 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo'; Neil Young recorded 'Harvest'; and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band created 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken.' Albums like these had a profound influence on popular music as well as establishing Nashville as a music hub and cool southern city with a sense of place."

While recording his album "Highway 61 Revisited" in 1965, Dylan was in New York working with producer Bob Johnston, a former Nashville resident who hired multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy to lead sessions in Nashville. McCoy attended one of Dylan's New York sessions and was invited to play guitar on "Desolation Row." Taken with McCoy's musicianship, Dylan was encouraged by Johnston to record in Nashville where there were other musicians as skilled as McCoy.

Dylan decided to take Johnston's advice and arrived in Nashville in 1966 to make "Blonde on Blonde," one of the great achievements of his long career and a benchmark of American popular music. Dylan returned to Nashville to record "John Wesley Harding," "Nashville Skyline," and portions of "Self Portrait."

Having met several years before, and having cemented their friendship at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, Dylan and Johnny Cash were reunited in Nashville in February...