Lorenzo Washington, Black Music Archivist, Dies at 83

Lorenzo Washington, founder of Nashville’s Jefferson Street Sound Museum, has died at 83 after a short bout with cancer. Though he was not a musician, he worked in the music business as a producer and helped bring the Saturday Night Band’s “Come On Dance” to the charts. In 2011, he opened his home as a museum to preserve the history of Jefferson Street, a hub of Black music and community life whose venues hosted artists including Jimi Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, Tina Turner and James Brown. The neighborhood’s residents and nightlife were widely displaced by the construction of I-40 in the late 1960s. Washington’s museum and preservation work helped keep that legacy visible and was recognized with the museum’s addition to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.