For thousands of years, the exploration and mystique of caves have often had transformational, sometimes very spiritually and mystically significant, effects upon visitors.

During a tour of the two caves found at The Caverns in Grundy County, Tennessee, as participants stand in the cool subterranean darkness, an audio recording recounts numerous times that caves have played a profound part in the lives of various individuals throughout history.

Johnny Cash once entered a cave with the intention to die, but emerged with a newfound connection to God and desire to live; Bilbo Baggins came out of a cave with a ring that gave him new powers and an enhanced perspective on reality; Jesus entered a cave as a dead man and exited as the living God; the prisoners in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave discovered a higher level of existence and meaning after emerging from their shadowy cave.

Luke Skywalker, the prophet Elijah, King Arthur and his knights, and many other historical figures, characters and legends experienced powerful revelations and life-changing moments within caves.

Todd Mayo, likewise, had a transformation and awakening in a cave that led his life in a new direction. He witnessed the impressive Volcano Room of another Tennessee Cave, Cumberland Caverns, in Warren County. He emerged from that cave visit inspired to launch an underground concert series, and in 2008, Bluegrass Underground was born within the depths of Cumberland Caverns.

The series launched with The SteelDrivers, and over the next 10 years the concerts would host bluegrass royalty along with other notable artists sometimes loosely affiliated with bluegrass, including Ricky Skaggs, Ralph Stanley, the Del McCoury Band, Old Crow Medicine Show, Amos Lee, Keller Williams, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, The Civil Wars and many others. Although the venue only held a few hundred guests at each show, Bluegrass Underground earned a global audience through its partnership with and broadcasts on PBS.

In 2018, Mayo continued his journey and purchased a cave of his own in neighboring Grundy County, where his concert series could make its permanent home and keep the music playing.

Here, he now has a larger, even more cavernous music venue, as well as a second cave known as the Big Room Cave, and owns—“well, the bank owns,” he specifies—650 acres of hilly woodlands surrounding the caves.

“I want to do some Hobbit-hole hotel rooms in the hills,” Mayo says, constantly pursuing the next stage of his vision, motioning to the treed hillsides towering above the Caverns.

Mayo aims to present a “Red Rocks meets Ruby Falls” atmosphere in this permanent home of the Bluegrass Underground series, which can seat 850 for concerts, or contain 1,200 for standing-room-only shows.

The Caverns had a full slate of shows planned for the summer of 2020, but those, like much of the music and entertainment industry, have been put on pause due to the year’s pandemic, shutdowns and restrictions on gatherings.

However, on July 4, 2020, the Caverns began offering guided tours of its two caves to the public.

These tours begin in Big Room Cave, which has recently become much more accessible to the casual cave stroller.

Caverns tour guides point out a narrow hole in the ground, covered by a metal gate, known as the historical entrance to Big Room Cave. Until the summer of 2020, those entering this cave had to enter this hole and make an approximately 20-foot descent down a ladder, followed by a 15-foot belly crawl in order to see the rocky underground wonders of the cave.

“All of the people who have explored this cave in the past had to have really wanted to,” says Caverns Marketing Director Jeff Meltesen, referencing the difficulty of accessing the cave prior to 2020.

But the Caverns team had a crew of geologists and surveyors come to the property to blast and dig a new walkway and cave entrance into the hillside.

“We created this entrance,” Meltesen said the day before the tours opened to the public, only a few weeks after the completion of the new entryway, as he led some guests into the cavern.

Before groups enter the Big Room Cave, a guide will give a quick history of the Grundy County area, a colorful and rugged tale involving Cherokee tribes, Swiss immigrants, coal mining, Al Capone (whose mansion atop Monteagle Mountain now houses the High Point Restaurant) and the Highlander Research and Education Center, which played a role in the civil rights movement and the training of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt and others.

The tours touch on the Nunnehi, a race of small, musical cave-dwelling people from Cherokee folklore.

These standard cave tours, while leading past various striking rock formations, do not have an incredibly challenging degree of difficulty (aside from a fairly steep walk down a paved trail to get to the entrance), but for the adventure seeking, the Adventure Cave Tours at the Caverns offer three hours of much more difficult exploration involving crawling and headlamps, which Meltesen describes as “mentally and physically challenging. You really have to put yourself in a good head space for the Adventure Tour,” he says.

The Adventure Tours, led by seasoned cavers, are $130 per person and include a commemorative T-shirt. Basic cave tours, however, are only $22.95 for adults, or $12.95 for ages 3–12 (ages 2 and under are free).

Those taking the basic cave tour will spend only a half-hour or so in the first cave, including about five minutes in total blackness as the audio plays, before the tour concludes within the second cave, which houses the unique, first-class concert venue. Tours end on the stage of The Caverns, where guests can pause for a photo op.

A building between the two caves contains a small gift shop with concert posters, various gemstones and cold drinks, along with a large wall map where Caverns visitors can mark their homes; pushpins traverse the world, from Murfreesboro to South Africa.

A video plays at the Visitors Center as well, showing some of the work done to the property and footage of previous Bluegrass Underground performances.

Justin Mayo, Todd’s twin brother and business partner, stands viewing some of the work done to the cave in 2018.

“It seems like a lifetime ago,” he says of the considerable labor performed to get the facility concert-ready only two years prior.

A clip of Billy Strings then plays on the television.

“That was the first show at the Caverns. He’s a prodigy. He’s going to be the next big thing,” says Justin, clearly a music lover.

“Eventually, the music will come back,” Meltesen says.

The Caverns and Big Room Cave are located about five miles off of I-24 Exit 127, near Pelham, Tennessee, less than an hour’s drive from Murfreesboro.

Book tours and find more information at thecaverns.com.

“What’s in there?” as Luke Skywalker asks Yoda before entering a cave.

“Only what you take with you,” the master replies.