NASHVILLE — To bolster his argument that the cavernous and almost-famous music room known as RCA Studio A should be spared from the wrecking ball, Mike Kopp, an artist manager, dropped a needle onto an LP, playing one of the thousands of songs recorded here over the last half-century.

It was Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” and on a recent morning it filled the empty studio with the same minor-key pathos and galloping urgency that it must have exuded back when Ms. Parton sang it here in 1973.

Today, booming Nashville is trying to decide whether the tone is appropriate for the crusade that Mr. Kopp and others are waging to save Studio A, a recording room that is steeped in music history and that is scheduled for demolition to make way for a luxury condominium project.

The potential loss of the 49-year-old studio has sparked a broader conversation here about whether the city’s sizzling real estate market is squeezing the music business out of Music Row, even as country has overtaken Top 40 as the nation’s most popular radio format.