NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Colin Poulton moved to Nashville in 2008 to study commercial guitar. He dropped out of college but stuck with the city and the guitar, first playing in a series of original bands and more recently making his living in the honky-tonks of Lower Broadway along with "a few wedding bands and some other bands."

All those gigs ended abruptly when the coronavirus hit. The clubs shut down on March 16 to slow the spread, and Nashville's normally packed downtown streets are all but deserted. Poulton applied for unemployment as soon as Congress passed the federal relief bill extend...