The Tuesday nearest September 8

The Harlan Howard
Birthday Bash

For more than a decade a stage went up in the BMI parking lot and a honky tonk took over Music Row. It was a benefit for songwriters, a rite of passage, and the best party this town ever threw.

Nashville, Tennessee

Harlan Howard on stage at the Harlan Howard Birthday Bash on Music Row

At the guitar pull you played two songs you wrote. That was the rule.

The BMI parking lot

The archive

Who turned up

Photographs from the Birthday Bash years in the BMI parking lot. Click any photograph to see the whole image. Captions name only the people the estate can identify.

Harlan Howard at the microphone during a Harlan Howard Birthday Bash
At the microphone
Harlan Howard at the Birthday Bash guitar pull in the BMI parking lot
At the guitar pull
Harlan Howard playing his medley of hits at the Birthday Bash
Playing his medley of hits
The crowd at a Harlan Howard Birthday Bash on Music Row, Nashville
The BMI parking lot, full
Bill Monroe performing at the Harlan Howard Birthday Bash in 1984
Bill Monroe plays the Bash 1984
Harlan Howard with Bill Monroe at the 1984 Harlan Howard Birthday Bash
With Bill Monroe 1984
Buck Owens and Harlan Howard together at a Harlan Howard Birthday Bash
With Buck Owens
Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn performing at the Harlan Howard Birthday Bash
Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn
Donna Summer performing at the Harlan Howard Birthday Bash
Donna Summer sings the Bash
Pat Alger, Donna Summer, Harlan Howard and Bruce Sudano at the Birthday Bash
Pat Alger, Donna Summer and Bruce Sudano
Tammy Wynette, Mark Knopfler and Harlan Howard at the Birthday Bash
Tammy Wynette and Mark Knopfler
Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash and Harlan Howard at the Birthday Bash
Rodney Crowell and Rosanne Cash
Mary and Roger Miller, Waylon Jennings, Nanci Griffith, Harlan and Melanie Howard at the Birthday Bash
The Millers, Waylon Jennings and Nanci Griffith
Craig Bickhardt, Thom Schuyler, Fred Knobloch and Harlan Howard at the Birthday Bash
Craig Bickhardt, Thom Schuyler and Fred Knobloch

This September

His ninety ninth
birthday.

September 8, 2026 would have been Harlan Howard’s ninety ninth birthday.

The archiveHis story
I Start at the beginning Walk his story II Photographs and paper The archive