Nashville is a city in north central Tennessee and also capital of the state. Nashville shares the same boundaries with Davidson County; the two merged within 1963. Nashville is called "Music City, USA" because it is the home of the recording industry for country-and-western music. Nashville is also the Middle South's center of government, education, banking, insurance, as well as health services. Around the city is the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant church group, and also Nashville is known for a printing industry specialized in publishing Bibles. Nashville had been founded around 1779 during the American Revolution (1775-1783) and named honoring Brigadier General Francis Nash, mortally wounded two years earlier in the Battle of Germantown.
In the 1920s Nashville's insurance companies started using radio to reach new markets. An outgrowth was the Grand Ole Opry, sponsored by WSM Radio, which began in 1925 and became the fount of Nashville's country-music industry. During World War II (1939-1945) southern country music became well-known in the United States, introduced to the rest of the nation by southern soldiers. After the war, Nashville's Music Row became the home of several recording studios, and musicians located Nashville a convenient spot to record. Songwriters and music publishers transferred to Nashville from New York as well as other cities. By the 1960s Music Row became a centre for country, gospel, pop, and rock music.
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