On Jan. 2, 1970, the day George Gruhn opened his first guitar shop at 111 Fourth Ave. N. near the corner of Broadway with then-business partner Tut Taylor and employee Randy Wood, Lower Broadway was a far cry from the bustling tourist district it is today. Four decades before visitors to our fair city began sipping Jimmy Buffett's trademarked margaritas, the drink of choice on Lower Broad was Thunderbird out of a brown paper sack. Where honky-tonks, restaurants and souvenir shops now stand, peep shows, liquor stores and pawn shops once dominated the landscape.
Forty-three-and-a-half years later, Gruhn Guitars is the most iconic vintage instrument business in the world. And though the store moved a couple of times in the interim, it was never more than 100 feet or so from the corner of Broadway and Fourth Avenue, honky-tonk ground zero. Until last month, that is, when Gruhn packed up shop and moved south of Wedgewood to 2120 Eighth Ave. S., the former home of email marketing firm Emma, and before that, the Nashville Scene.
Businesses relocate all the time, but Gruhn's move was big news. For many longtime Nashvillians, Gruhn was one of a few businesses — along with Ernest Tubb Record Shop, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and Hatch Show Print — that defined Lower Broadway and tied it to our city's deep musical roots. Moreover, Gruhn's clientele includes a large share of the musicians and celebrities who make this Music City U.S.A.
Ironically, the revival of Lower Broadway, while an undeniable boon for the city as a whole, had become a major headache for Gruhn. For one thing, tourists making the pilgrimage to country music's mecca — the lion's share of Lower Broadway foot traffic in recent years — are hardly the target market for a prewar Martin acoustic or a 1955 "TV yellow" Les Paul Special. Second, parking in the area was becoming prohibitively expensive. That's not to mention that the business had significantly outgrown its previous digs at 400 Broadway — roughly 13,000 square feet, much of it tied up in stairwells, hallways and restrooms. The new Gruhn store, which has its grand opening this week, features 18,000 square feet of usable space and plenty of free parking.
"Broadway," Gruhn says, "had morphed into a neighborhood that in my opinion resembled a cross between a hillbilly version of Bourbon Street — that's what Marty Stuart called it, not me — but I added that it's half that and half Daytona Beach at spring break, but every day."
Getting bodies in the Broadway store was no problem at all, but getting the right kind of bodies was a different story.
"We were getting 500 to 700 people a day through the door," Gruhn says, "and 98 percent of them were there not to see us, but because they were in the neighborhood, and they'd stop in virtually every door. But they were not buying from us, and in fact, they were driving our core customers away. ... The sales staff was spending 90 percent of their time on crowd control and damage prevention."
Those may sound like the words of a crank longing for a rosy past that never existed, but Gruhn has no nostalgia about his early days in the area.
"That's not to say Broadway ever was a wonderful neighborhood," he says. "It was sleazy when I first opened up. It had hookers and pimps. It had drug pushers. It had liquor stores. It had pawnshops. Porno palaces, peep shows. Massage parlors where they massaged all parts of the anatomy. ... Merchants was a flophouse. In fact, there were at least a dozen flophouses within just a small walking radius of where we were.
"Still, I always viewed it as the magic block. Broadway between Fourth and Fifth, particularly on the north side of the street, was visited by more people than any other street in Nashville. People might come look and be repulsed, but before they were repulsed, they'd see me. And we got to see all the performers who went to the Ryman, and frankly, got to see all the major performers that were interested in vintage instruments."
As anyone who's interviewed Gruhn can tell you, he provides no short answers. A simple five-word question — "How did you get to Nashville?" — can trigger a 15-minute response, and his memory for detail is astounding, even if he's prone to digression.
The story goes something like this: In 1968, Gruhn was living in Knoxville, doing graduate work in reptile behavior at the University of Tennessee. He had been obsessed since childhood with insects and zoology, and had graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in ethology (animal behavior) just a year earlier, followed by a brief graduate stint at Duke.
He'd also developed an interest in old-time Appalachian string-band music, and had been hitting the festival circuit for a couple of years. Along the way, he started collecting guitars. Hank Williams Jr., then famous for little more than being Hank Sr.'s son, had heard about Gruhn's growing guitar collection, and wanted to know what he had.
"I didn't get very far," Gruhn says, "before he said, 'You know, I could be there in four hours.' "
Williams made the trip from Nashville to Knoxville in his Jaguar E — essentially two small seats attached to an enormous engine and wheels. He bought as many guitars as he could fit in the Jag — three, to be exact. As he left, he said that he could be back the next day with a bigger car.
"And he was!" Gruhn says. "He came back the next day in a Cadillac Eldorado. And he bought enough guitars to fill that."
Before long, Williams was pestering Gruhn to move to Nashville and get into the guitar business. He even found Gruhn an apartment.
"I was getting disenchanted with the academic scene," Gruhn says, "so I thought about it, and decided I'd drop out of graduate school and move to Nashville."
Keep in mind that when Gruhn opened that store in 1970, there really was no vintage guitar market. A 1950s Martin acoustic guitar, for instance, wasn't even 20 years old. To a large degree, he was responsible for creating the vintage guitar market.
Country star Vince Gill has known Gruhn since Gill came to Nashville from Oklahoma in the mid-1970s to make a record.
"We've been friends for 40 years," Gill says. "He doesn't mess around. He trend-sets in so many ways. He's a big part of setting the market value of so many instruments. His reputation is pretty spotless."
That's not to say Gruhn is without his detractors. His blunt demeanor can sometimes seem gruff. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. And because he typically has some of the most desirable vintage instruments, he asks top dollar.
"The knock on George from people I hear is that his prices are too high," Gill says. "No, his prices are pretty fair. If he has an instrument that's in bad condition or the finish is compromised, they're priced accordingly."
Furthermore, the world of vintage guitars is populated with more than a few shady characters who will mislead folks about the originality or condition of an instrument — and there are so many variables that only a few experts are really knowledgeable enough to spot a good con job. In that regard, Gruhn is considered one of the ultimate authorities.
"He's my go-to guy if someone wants to sell me something and I want to know exactly what it is," Gill says.
And Gruhn is the go-to guy for a lot of other celebrities. He estimates that Eric Clapton has bought more than 50 guitars from him. ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons and Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen have purchased at least 100 each.
Though Gruhn opened the doors of his Eighth Avenue location a few weeks ago, his official grand reopening celebration takes place Thursday, July 11, through Saturday, July 13. There will be instrument and accessory vendors as well as giveaways from Taylor, Martin, Laramie, DR Strings, Cooperstand and of course, Gruhn. Store hours will be extended for the three-day celebration, 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. each day.
Of course, visitors will be able to tour the much more spacious new facility. The first floor is entirely showroom space, with three tryout rooms, one of which is a sound-insulated amplifier room. The second floor has high-end instruments, storage space for cases, and offices, including George's lair — complete with 15 snakes. Much of his personal instrument collection hangs on a wall outside his office.
The third floor houses the repair shop — there are seven full-time repair people who work exclusively on the store's instruments — as well as the incoming inventory area and a photography room.
As in the old store, there is a large selection of mandolins, banjos and other stringed instruments, many of them with stories to tell. On a recent visit, an Orie Tone Koto was sitting on a glass case. Asked about the instrument, Gruhn general manager Eric Newell explains: "Remember the La Choy TV commercials from the 1960s and '70s, 'La Choy makes Chinese food ... swing, American'? That koto was played on that commercial." Gruhn acquired it from Patrick Ferreri, a Chicago guitarist who was a staff musician at ABC and played on many commercials. It can be yours for $200.
And of course, there are acoustic and electric guitars for every budget, from a 2004 Mexican Fender Strat ($550) to a 1960 Les Paul Standard ($135,000).
So can a business so strongly identified with a location thrive after it moves?
"I did have fears if I moved that it might be something difficult to recapture," Gruhn admits. "But the very first week we were here, we already did more business than we did on Broadway. We didn't miss a beat."
Furthermore, Gruhn is excited about a new instrument district he sees developing all around his new location. He cites several similar businesses in the general vicinity: Carter Vintage Guitars, Guitar Gallery, Buckley Mills, Corner Music, Bedell Guitars (at Two Old Hippies), Glaser Instruments and Guitar Center, as well as Cotten Music's new home on Houston Street and The Fiddle Shop, which is in the process of moving to Eighth Avenue.
"They call 16th, 17th and 18th avenues Music Row," Gruhn says. "But we have Music Instrument Row developing, and we are right smack in the hub of it."
Email editor@nashvillescene.com.
