|
||
 One of only two TCB guitars to be made sits on a work bench at the Gibson Guitar factory in Memphis. TCB stands for "Taking Care of Business," a logo associated with Elvis. (Globe photo / Ted Gartland)  Blues in a Delta town Pork pulled to perfection A path through Gullah country More on the South
|
||
|
||
|
Printable version
If you go...
How to get there
Upcoming round-trip fares between Boston and Memphis start at $198 on Northwest, Delta, American, US Airways, Continental, and United.
What to do
Gibson Beale Street Showcase
Gibson Guitar Factory Tours
Memphis Rock `n' Soul Museum
The Lounge
|
||
A block from Beale Street, the hub of the city's thriving music scene, the showcase houses the Gibson Guitar Factory, the Memphis Rock `n' Soul Museum, and the Lounge, an extraordinary place to see live performances of all kinds.
The showcase goes full circle. Early in the day, you can tour the factory and watch guitars being made largely by hand. Next, you can walk through the museum and trace the roots and rise of an important Memphis artist like B. B. King. Then, that night you can go to the Lounge and hear musicians influenced by King and other Memphis greats, many of them playing Gibson instruments like those being made in the factory next door.
The first Gibson acoustic guitars were made a century ago, not long after Orville Gibson started making mandolins in Kalamazoo, Mich. The company introduced its first electric guitar in 1936 and brought out its signature Les Paul model in 1952.
Today, Gibson headquarters are in Nashville with factories there, in Memphis, and in Bozeman, Mont., where the company's acoustic models are made. A trip though the Memphis facility is fascinating as lumber, largely maple and mahogany, is transformed into musical instruments that are works of art.
''Everybody got their eye gear on?'' asked Chuck Porter, Gibson's director of tours, as we prepared to enter the factory. The high-ceilinged structure is filled with noise, wood dust, and humidity - thus, the eye protection.
The semi-hollow-body electric guitars made in Memphis start out as untreated ''white wood,'' Porter explained, and the high humidity is maintained to keep the maple moist while it is shaped, bound, and glued to create the distinctive Gibson body shapes. Each guitar also bears the trademark ''open book or dovetail'' pattern at the top of the head stock on the instrument's neck.
''It takes about two weeks to build each guitar, and we turn out about 60 guitars a day,'' Porter said as we watched workers gluing on the necks. The factory, which has been in full production since August 2001, employs about 135 people, Porter said.
The most striking moment on the 16-stop, 30-minute tour came as we watched the famous Gibson ''sunburst'' paint patterns being sprayed on by hand. It's an art form very few have mastered. The guitars are then treated with nine to 12 coats of nitro cellulose lacquer, also by hand. The instruments are inspected at each stop in the assembly process, Porter said, and they can be sent back for more work or rejected at any point.
The guitars are buffed and polished, and then the hardware, electronics, and strings are put in place, and the instruments are put into cases in preparation for shipment across the country and around the world. The factory produces, among others, the B. B. King Lucille signature model, the ES-135, the ES-175 reissue, and the Herb Ellis ES-165 signature model.
''It's funny,'' Porter said, '' but the people who don't play really enjoy the tours the most. They say, `I just never knew everything that goes into making a great guitar.'''
An added highlight is the Gibson Pure Retail Shop conveniently located where the tours begin and end. The store offers instruments for sale and a full line of Gibson-themed clothing and accessories for the nonmusicians in the group.
The Rock `n' Soul Museum is a creation of the Smithsonian Institution and an invaluable stop for anyone wanting to explore the explosion of music in Memphis over the years. Beyond Elvis Presley, Memphis has been home to Rufus Thomas, Issac Hayes, Sun Studios, Stax and Hi records, and the Rev. Al Green, as well as rockabilly rebels like Billy Lee Riley and Jerry Lee Lewis.
The museum chronicles the lives of musicians black and white, the contributions of W. C. Handy, the ''father of the blues,'' and how different strains of distinctly American music came together in Memphis to create the rock and soul sounds still echoing today. The audio accompaniment to the tour of the museum's six galleries is highly recommended.
The Lounge, meanwhile, seats 300 people and is visually intimate and acoustically outstanding. During Elvis Week in August, Scotty Moore, Presley's original guitar player, performed with Lee Rocker, formerly of the Stray Cats, to a packed house. In September, the Lounge hosted Riley and Sonny Burgess - both represented in the Rock `n' Soul Museum.
With everything from live shows to history brought to life to a look at how music is actually made, the Gibson Showcase has taken its place alongside Graceland and Sun Studios as one of the top musical destinations in Memphis.