The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's newest exhibit opened on March 12. American Currents: State of the Music is a look at some of the biggest moments in country music over the last year, and how those developments relate to the genre's past.

Normally, the Hall of Fame would celebrate the opening of a new exhibit with a big, in-person gathering, bringing together industry members, the featured artists, friends and fans for a first look at the displays. The COVID-19 pandemic has made doing so impossible -- but that means, this time around, everyone's invited.

On Friday night (March 19) at 8PM ET, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will premiere American Currents: Celebrating the State of the Music, a program that will take fans inside the new exhibit and include performances from a few of the artists included in it. Fans can watch from home via YouTube, below, or via the Hall of Fame's Facebook page.

During the Celebrating the State of the Music special, country legend Vince Gill, a Country Music Hall of Fame member and the museum's board president, as well as Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young, will introduce the new American Currents exhibit. Artists Luke Combs and Rissi Palmer, who also hosts an Apple Music Country radio show, will guide viewers through the year that was and the new exhibit; they, along with Grammy-winning bluegrass singer-songwriter Billy Strings, will also perform.

A new American Currents: State of the Music opens early each year at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, but this year's, in particular, has much to share: In 2020, both the global COVID-19 pandemic and the United States' reckoning with racial inequality directly affected the genre.

In addition to Combs, Palmer and Strings, the artists featured in American Currents: State of the Music include Gabby Barrett, songwriter Casey Beathard, the Chicks, Eric Church, Dan + Shay, Mickey Guyton, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde, Maren Morris, Dolly Parton, John Prine, bluegrass group Sister Sadie and retired Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs. Additionally, the exhibit's Unbroken Circle section -- which connects current artists with their heroes and influences -- includes Jimmie Allen and Darius Rucker, Ingrid Andress and Faith Hill, Charley Crockett and Freddy Fender, as well as Dierks Bentley’s Hot Country Knights and the Statler Brothers’ Lester “Roadhog” Moran & the Cadillac Cowboys.

American Currents: State of the Music will be open at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum through Feb. 22, 2022. Learn more about the exhibit, and find information about in-person visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, at CountryMusicHallOfFame.org.

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