Exit/In

A roughly 500-capacity rock club on Elliston Place in Midtown Nashville, booking shows since 1971. Robert Altman shot 2 interior scenes of his film “Nashville” in this room in the summer of 1974.

The National Register nomination, listed March 28, 2023, names both scenes: Lily Tomlin and Robert Doqui talking prison and drugs, and Keith Carradine singing “I’m Easy.” That song won the film its only Oscar.

Screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury sat in the club repeatedly in 1973 while writing the script. In July 1974 most of the cast took the stage for a night, playing their own songs and the film’s.

Fred Schultz, a Nashville IATSE crew member, sat at a table as a background player for 2 days and listened to Altman direct. His account confirms the shoot here, not which scene he watched.

The earliest print record in the nomination’s bibliography is a Tennessean piece from July 23, 1973, on the club’s lunch service. That is a year before Altman’s crew arrived and mentions no film.

Still a ticketed venue most nights, reopened in spring 2023 under owner AJ Capital after closing in November 2022. The club now opens to the front, not the back-alley door Altman used.