By Joanna Grey Talbot

Best laid plans of mice and men, eh? Yesterday, I set off on my weekly adventure to check out places new to me in an old town. I had hours planned out but it wasn’t to be.

My first stop was the NC Music Hall of Fame in Kannapolis. It was founded in 1994 in Thomasville, NC, by two businessmen. It quickly ran out of room and moved to a soon-to-be renovated historic jail in Kannapolis. That is when Mike Curb, owner and founder of Curb Records, stepped in to help with funding and promotion. In 2014 the museum relocated to the brand new building of the Curb Museum for Music and Motorsports.

A few of the vignettes within the Hall of Fame

In order to be considered for induction musicians, producers, and industry executives must have either been born in North Carolina or made North Carolina their home and have been in the industry for at least 10 years. There are currently 80 inductees covering all genres of music, but because of space not all have memorabilia on display. They do rotate the exhibits in order to have each inductee on display at some point.

Nina Simone

Charlie Daniels

From jazz singer Nina Simone to country singer Charlie Daniels, you can learn about many of North Carolina’s most important artists. Next week they will be inducting the 2016 class, which is made up of the Band of Oz, Chuck Brown, Ron Tyson, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, David Holt, Percy Heath, Kellie Pickler, and The Avett Brothers. The ceremony is open to the public and will feature performances by The Avett Brothers, Band of Oz, David Hold, and the Chairmen of the Board. You can purchase tickets online.

The rest of the building, on either side of the Hall of Fame, is filled with NASCAR cars that were sponsored by Curb Records. They are very neat to look at, but admittedly, NASCAR isn’t my thing so I didn’t linger too long in that portion of the museum.

This is where my day changed.

I took one last look around in the museum to make sure I hadn’t missed anything and then headed out to my car. As soon as I reached it I realized that my left front tire was completely flat. *facepalm* Cars are great until they turn into a large, useless paperweight. My father has shown me 4 or 5 times how to change a tire but I have never had to do it myself. He and my husband were both over an hour away so I knew they couldn’t help. I called my husband anyway and he immediately called around to auto shops in the area to see who could help. We had planned to call my insurance company for a tow but it ended up the shop he called offered roadside service for flats and they were only a mile and a half away.

Within half an hour of discovering my flat tire Mark from Gio’s Tire and Automotive Shop pulled up. He pumped up my tire with the hopes it would get me to their shop. It worked and I followed him there. He spent over an hour working on my tire to see if he could repair it. The sensor was destroyed and had in turn ruined the inside of my tire. He fixed it and then I had to wait a couple hours for their daily tire delivery to get my new tire.

It was not the most fun way to spend three hours on a Wednesday but it could have been much worse. I was so grateful for my husband’s and Gio’s help but I was so ready to get home once my car had its brand new shoe on. The rest of my outing to Kannapolis will have to wait for another day!

Despite the long interruption, it made for an adventure and the opportunity to meet new people. Glass half full, right?

Happy travels!

http://www.northcarolinamusichalloffame.org, 704-934-2320

600 Dale Earnhardt Blvd, Kannapolis, NC

Open Monday-Friday 10am-4pm, Closed for lunch 12-1pm