Lorenzo Washington, who dedicated himself to honoring and preserving the legacy of Black music in North Nashville through his Jefferson Street Sound Museum, has died after a short bout with cancer, his family confirmed. He was 83.
Born in 1943, Washington spent the first 14 years of his life in East Nashville, in a house that did not have electricity until he was 12. He attended Meigs School, though according to his memoir Rising Above: The Lorenzo Washington Story, he did not learn to read until his 20s, which did not stop him from opening and operating numerous businesses throughout his life, including a barbecue restaurant and a cleaning service.
Raised in a segregated Nashville, Washington lived through a historic period of violence and discrimination against the city’s Black community. But he was also formed by its vibrant culture, which thrived on Jefferson Street for decades. The thoroughfare through the heart of North Nashville was lined with churches and Black-owned businesses along with music venues that hosted legendary artists like Jimi Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, Tina Turner and James Brown. Many of the neighborhood’s residents, and its nightlife, were uprooted by the construction of I-40 in the late 1960s…