Nashville tunnel becomes a ‘tubatorium’ when musician toots his horn
By Tom Adkinson
February 25, 2022

Musician Joe Hunter transforms a railroad overpass tunnel into the Tubatorium for Nashville commuters. Image by Tom Adkinson

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Joe Hunter doesn’t mind afternoon rush hour traffic. In fact, he’s happy when the intersection of Thompson Lane and Nolensville Road, one of the busiest in Nashville, slows traffic to a crawl.

A jammed intersection will stack traffic up a half-mile to where Hunter waits inside the Hicks-Ellis Tunnel to entertain drivers with tunes on his tuba.

Yes, his tuba. In a city full of street-corner buskers strumming guitars, Hunter is a one-man band playing a tuba in a tunnel. His tip jar is a Crystal Springs water bottle that dangles from the instrument.

When cars, trucks and buses aren’t zooming by, the tunnel provides some interesting acoustics for “La Bamba,” “The Pink Panther,” “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans” or the ominous theme from “Jaws.” He delivers a whimsical mix of blues, jazz, show tunes and martial music.

When Hunter is there, the tunnel becomes the Tubatorium.

The sousaphone is John Philip Sousz’s adaptation of the tuba for marching bands. The bell on early models pointed straight up. Image by Tom Adkinson

Hunter actually plays a sousaphone, John Philip Sousa’s adaptation of the tuba for marching bands, but everyone who sees him calls him the Tuba Man.

“It puts a smile on a lot of people’s faces. It’s not every day you get in a traffic jam with a sousaphone in it,” Hunter said between puffs into the mouthpiece of his awkward-looking instrument. Average brass sousaphones weigh 30 to 35 pounds.

Hunter comes by his tuba playing honestly. Although he says he started out playing trumpet in high school, he ended up with a tuba and even was in the marching band at Louisiana State University. That’s where he drifted away from university musical education to real-world musical education.

He began playing in clubs, and as he told a radio interviewer once, “(I did) the 1980s equivalent of running away with the circus – I got hired into a blues band in Baton Rouge.”

Hunter said his Tubatorium gig started in 1998. He has played more traditional venues, too, noting that before COVID, he played “everywhere there was a session” and that he’s played in Switzerland and Austria. Playing in the Far East remains a dream.

Hunter repositions himself for a musical stroll through the Tubatorium the next time traffic slows. Image by Tom Adkinson

Drivers catch a few seconds of Hunter’s music many days of the year. There’s no formal starting time, but it’s common to find him playing from 4-6 p.m. Unlike a street-corner musician, at least his venue stays dry on a rainy day.

“I’ll play even when it’s cold – down to freezing unless the wind is blowing too bad,” he said.

Hunter leans in for a tip while continuing to play in the Hicks-Ellis Tunnel. Image by Tom Adkinson

Hunter will keep on playing when someone motions him over to drop a tip in his bucket, and he’ll sometimes play along with music coming from the radios of stopped cars.

“Playing here is a cool chance for me to practice and a cool chance for people in their cars to do something besides mess with their telephones,” he told one interviewer, proving once again that Nashville is called Music City for more than one reason.