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Topic: pics of old nashville steel guitar store |
Joe Krumel
From:
Hermitage, Tn.
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 5:51 am |
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probably 50's lower broadway. |
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Joe Krumel
From:
Hermitage, Tn.
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 6:00 am pics
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anybody remember wheelers?? I've lived here 31+years and it was before my time |
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Pete Finney
From:
Nashville Tn.
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 6:36 am
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Cool photos, thanks for posting. Of course that great building on the corner of 4th and Broadway is thankfully still intact, and has been Merchants restaurant (pretty upscale) since 1990 or so.
My first trip to Nashville was passing through in 1973 after graduating high-school; I visited Sho-Bud and got shown around by Duane Marrs; got to see Hal Rugg picking up a recently modified steel in the third floor "custom shop" and playing incredibly for about 20 minutes. That blew my 17 year-old mind; I bought a used Maverick a few weeks after I got home from that trip, and was playing in clubs a few months after that.
Lower Broad was still very seedy and run down; I remember Demons Den and lots of porn shops. I don't remember if that store in the picture was still there then, but that picture captures the vibe I remember, and downtown really hadn't changed much when I moved to town 10 years later. |
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Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 7:04 am
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I got hungry just looking at the pictures! 
Erv |
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David Ball
From:
North Carolina High Country
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 8:37 am
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John Hartford's song, "Nobody Eats at Linebaugh's Anymore" includes the line, "The drunks are gone from the Merchant's Hotel...." The Merchant's Hotel and Merchant's Lunch was a pretty seedy place back when I was growing up. (I don't remember the steel guitar sales though. Guess I'm too young for that.)
Linebaugh's wasn't much better, but a lot of Opry stars hung out there back when the Opry was still at the Ryman.
Dave |
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Pete Finney
From:
Nashville Tn.
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 10:38 am
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This old thread on Wheeler "Ped-All" steel guitars suggests that these photos might be from the 1970s, with several references to Lee Wheeler moving his shop from Portland, Oregon to Nashville sometime during that period.
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=111485 |
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Joe Krumel
From:
Hermitage, Tn.
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 11:17 am wheeler pics
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thanks Pete for the info. I should have done a search.
I would like to look at one of his guitars. Especially the D-14,LH! wow! |
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K Maul
From:
Hadley, NY/Hobe Sound, FL
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 12:33 pm
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| David Ball wrote: |
John Hartford's song, "Nobody Eats at Linebaugh's Anymore" includes the line, "The drunks are gone from the Merchant's Hotel...." The Merchant's Hotel and Merchant's Lunch was a pretty seedy place back when I was growing up.
Dave |
No steel in this song, sorry. I played dobro in Robin+Linda Williams’ band with Jim Watson, who recorded this with the Ramblers. A hair raising tale!
https://youtu.be/z8bIcxLfDgM
_________________
KEVIN MAUL: Airline, Beard, Clinesmith, Donner, Evans, Excel, Fender, Fluger, GFI, Gibson, Hilton, Ibanez, Justice, K+K, Live Strings, MOYO, National, Oahu, Peterson, Quilter, Rickenbacher, Sho~Bud, Supro, TC, Ultimate, VHT, Williams, X-otic, Yamaha, ZKing. |
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Joe Krumel
From:
Hermitage, Tn.
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 1:39 pm
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| K Maul, I love that trumpet in the song! |
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Bob Watson
From:
Champaign, Illinois, U.S.
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 6:05 pm
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| My first trip to Nashville was in the summer of 1974. I remember the Merchants Hotel and the Demon's Den, with an ally in between the two. I don't recall this music store. There was a cool music store across the street, where Gruhn's is ( or was, it seems to me that I recall they were moving ), but the access to the music store I remember was off of 4th street, not Broadway. I remember turning the corner off of Broadway heading left, away from the Demon's Den, and seeing a music store that had an old Black Les Paul Custom in the window that had the Staple P90 P/U's in it. Broadway really was a little more seedy back then. |
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Jerry Jones
From:
Franklin, Tenn.
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Steve Hinson
From:
Hendersonville Tn USA
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 8:11 pm
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The old soulful Broadway...I liked it a lot better.
SH |
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Skip Edwards
From:
LA,CA
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 8:23 pm
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Wow... amazing how much it's changed.
Couple good shots of the Sho-Bud store, as well as Tootsie's & Ernest Tubb's.
And, a shot of the Wheeler VW bus.
Funny... Even though they're from '79, if it wasn't for the cars in the shots you'd think they were all pics from the 50's - 60's.
Thanks for the link. |
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Pete Finney
From:
Nashville Tn.
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Posted 28 Aug 2020 8:41 pm
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| Steve Hinson wrote: |
The old soulful Broadway...I liked it a lot better.
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Yeah, Steve, no doubt the soul is long gone, between the general corporate vibe and the big-money, classic-rock take-over of the honky-tonk scene, and the cluelessness of the typical bachelor-ette tourist these days...
But it seems to me like there was a sweet spot in between (for the musicians anyway) from maybe the mid-nineties into the aughts where it had cleaned up enough to allow for a lot more music-venues and a comfort-level for visitors but still had a fair amount of the old funk. And for a while there were a lot of places to play the classic era country music most of us prefer, and make a few bucks; right? Except for Roberts (sometimes) and maybe a few others that was pretty much gone pre-covid anyway. Anyway, that's the era that I miss the most. |
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Joe Krumel
From:
Hermitage, Tn.
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Posted 29 Aug 2020 5:16 am
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| The old soulful Broadway. Yeah there was something about it. Glad they cleaned it up and preserved most of the buildings,...but they didn't stop the cleansing when they should have. They(whoever they are)took the "one of a kind" place and tore out it's soul.IMHO. |
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Chris Brooks
From:
Providence, Rhode Island
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Posted 30 Aug 2020 5:46 am
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Great to see Tootsie's, where Steve Bivins and I (along with "Clyde" the drum machine) played many afternoon sets--for tips.
And Rose's, where on a break one afternoon I spotted a tenor sax for sale. I bought it and still play it.
This was in the mid-80s.
Chris |
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Ron Hogan
From:
Nashville, TN, usa
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Posted 30 Aug 2020 5:56 am
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| Pete Finney wrote: |
Cool photos, thanks for posting. Of course that great building on the corner of 4th and Broadway is thankfully still intact, and has been Merchants restaurant (pretty upscale) since 1990 or so.
My first trip to Nashville was passing through in 1973 after graduating high-school; I visited Sho-Bud and got shown around by Duane Marrs; got to see Hal Rugg picking up a recently modified steel in the third floor "custom shop" and playing incredibly for about 20 minutes. That blew my 17 year-old mind; I bought a used Maverick a few weeks after I got home from that trip, and was playing in clubs a few months after that.
Lower Broad was still very seedy and run down; I remember Demons Den and lots of porn shops. I don't remember if that store in the picture was still there then, but that picture captures the vibe I remember, and downtown really hadn't changed much when I moved to town 10 years later. |
Pete, I remember when I moved to Nashville in 1980. Because Broadway was so sleezy, most good Musicians didn't pick there. You were considered not a good picker if you played those dumps. Boy has that changed for the good! I'm surprised I never met you in all these years |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 30 Aug 2020 8:26 am
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Those 1980 pic's are too "new" for me. I worked at Little Roy Wiggins' "Music City" music store at 427 Broadway in 71/72. The store was the Grammer Guitar factory outlet, Emmons Steel Guitar Nashville dealer and Ampeg factory repair center. I was the amp repair tech. Bob Browning, who worked a lot with Jeff Newman and sang on most of the instruction material that had a vocalist, was a salesman at the store.
I worked Deeman's Den one time in early 72. I was a fill in on a Wednesday evening. Don't remember much about it except the singer was a female.
Early 70's when I was there Lower Broadway was skid row of Nashville. City View lived on top of Tootsie's. The homeless were there during the week but would disappear on Friday and Saturday when the Opry visitors were in town.
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