NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Nashville Banner) — This story was originally published by the Nashville Banner. Sign up for their newsletter.
Lorenzo Washington, who dedicated himself to honoring and preserving the legacy of Black music in North Nashville through his Jefferson Street Sound Museum, has died after a short bout with cancer, his family confirmed. He was 83.
Born in 1943, Washington spent the first 14 years of his life in East Nashville, in a house that did not have electricity until he was 12. He attended Meigs School, though according to his memoir Rising Above: The Lorenzo Washington Story, he did not learn to read until his 20s, which did not stop him from opening and operating numerous businesses throughout his life, including a barbecue restaurant and a cleaning service.
Raised in a segregated Nashville, Washington lived through a historic period of violence and discrimination against the city’s Black community. But he was also formed by its vibrant culture, which thrived on Jefferson Street for decades. The thoroughfare through the heart of North Nashville was lined with churches and Black-owned businesses along with music venues that hosted legendary artists like Jimi Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, Tina Turner and James Brown. Many of the neighborhood’s residents, and its nightlife, were uprooted by the construction of I-40 in the late 1960s.
Although he wasn’t a musician himself, Washington did get into the music industry as a producer in the 1970s and later partnered with Moses Dillard and Jesse Boyce on the Saturday Night Band’s hit single “Come On Dance.”
In 2011, he turned his home into the Jefferson Street Sound Museum.
“It started out just for people actually from the community,” Washington wrote in his memoir. “A lot of these local musicians made it to fame too, right here in Nashville and many of them became national and international stars. Jefferson Street was a stepping stone for so many talented people, and I wanted to honor their lives.”
He had served as the museum’s curator and champion since its opening. It was added to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail earlier this year.
“I was raised up in the midst of a lot of these guys that I’m representing now,” Washington told the Banner’s Demetria Kalodimos in 2021. “I just had a love for the music and a love for my friends.”
Washington’s close friend and fellow music historian David Pearcy described him as “a piece of living history.”
It was a widely held sentiment. In 2024, the National Museum of African American Music honored him with an exhibit called “Living Legends: Lorenzo Washington.” Each April 3 since 2023, the Lorenzo Washington Day Gala has celebrated his work and served as a fundraiser for the museum.
Washington is survived by his wife, Karen Coffee, and four children: Dwayne, Tracey, Pat and Ryan. A funeral service will be held Oct. 31, although a location is yet to be confirmed, according to a post from The Nashville Black Music Association.
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
September 11, 2001 is a day most associate with terror and tragedy. Austin Pollack shares a story from that day about hope and persistence: the effort to save a little girl’s life – with an organ donation. The problem? The young patient was in Houston, and her life-saving liver here in Nashville. With the grounding of all civilian aircraft, how could it be done? “Nobody ever said this isn’t possible.”
- Rhori Johnston
