“Once the Europeans came to America in the late 1400s — Columbus, colonial invasion, all that stuff — they brought three things with them: guns, foreign influence, and guitars,” says Harvey Newquist, the founder of the National Guitar Museum. “Ever since then, the guitar has been a part of the American nation. … You can track American history through the way people have used guitars, not only for music but also as symbols of what they’re doing.”
Indeed, within the National Guitar Museum’s traveling exhibition “America at The Crossroads: The GUITAR and a Changing Nation” each of the 40 or so guitars represents a snapshot in U.S. history — “whether it’s an emblem or a symbol of the blues and emancipation of enslaved people going out and playing the blues circuit, onto country and Western music that became popular in the late 1800s, onto Hawaiian music which actually changed America in the early 1900s, on up into protest music and folk music,” Newquist says.
The exhibition, now on display at the Museum of Science & History, even has a bit of a Memphis touch, with one of B.B. King’s Lucilles and one of Elvis’ stage guitars on display. It also coincides with the museum’s “Grind City Picks: The Music That Made Memphis” exhibit, which centers around the guitar’s role in Memphis music history. “It’s a celebration of music and Memphis, but it’s not trying to be comprehensive,” says Raka Nandi, director of exhibits and collections. “We have 15 guitars and each one of them has an amazing story.”
From Albert King’s Flying V to The Bar-Kays’ James Alexander’s very first guitar to the guitars of Eric Gales and Sid Selvidge, the exhibit borrows guitars from “the people that you expect to hear about” and guitars from people who are newer to the scene like MonoNeon, Julien Baker, the Lipstick Stains, and Amy LaVere, who has lent her banjo. “These guitarists have really been at the forefront of the evolution of music in Memphis,” Nandi adds.
To accompany “Grind City Picks,” the museum also created a downloadable Spotify playlist for those who visit the exhibit. Additionally, MoSH will host “The Way They Play” every second Saturday of the month for the duration of the exhibit. The event will spotlight special guest musicians, who will demonstrate and talk about their quirks, techniques, and styles. “You’ll get an insider view on how an artist sort of thinks about that, and how they manipulate the instrument and how they’re creative with it,” says Nandi. The museum, she adds, will also host a monthly Laser Live, where Memphis musicians will perform live to a full laser light show in MoSH’s planetarium.
For more information on either exhibits and their programming, visit moshmemphis.com.
“America at the Crossroads: The Guitar and a Changing Nation” and “Grind City Picks: The MUsic That Made Memphis,” Museum of Science & History, on display through October 22.
