Sheri O'neal Photographer

I recently had an opportunity to shoot a few images at Gruhn Guitars, a downtown Nashville staple that was established in 1970. Owner, George Gruhn allowed me to look through the store and shoot what ever I wanted. It was overwhelming how many instruments he had in his inventory so I avoided the temptation of staying all day and focused on the private areas of the building in the different rooms above the showroom.

George has 25 employees, these include sales, staff and repair positions. As George walked me through a tour of the upstairs he shared with me that music was always a love but he went to college to be a Zoologist. His undergraduate studies were in animal behavior at the University of Chicago. He graduated from Duke with a degree in Zoology and did further studies in animal behavior at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  His love of animals is evident with the fifteen snakes and the African grey parrot named Boid that reside in his office. At home he has two African serval cat’s, three Felis chaus cats and one plain ole cat I am sure feels a bit normal! When I asked him how he ended up in the guitar industry he said it was a hobby that turned into a lucrative business.

I started my moorning wanting to shoot from a journalistic prospective offering the viewer a vision of George, what goes on behind the scenes and showcasing some of my favorite instruments. Here are a few images from my brief visit…

(above) Fiddle peghead….

(above) Scott Kinsey repairing a 1930′s Martin acoustic.

(above) George Gruhn playing a 1970′s Martin OM-45 guitar.

(above) Greg Voros repairing a L-5 CES Gibson

(above) George with his parrot “Boid” who he has had since 1993 when she was 12 weeks old.

(above) Epiphone 1930 banjo…a very rare item.

(above) George with his bull snake, one of fifteen snakes that are kept safely  in aquariums in his office.

Although I am not much of a musician, I love music and I have a great appreciation for the craftsmanship that goes into the creation and repair of vintage and high end instruments. I enjoyed my visit with George and his staff. In the end I can see the relationship of Zoology to the tracking, history and specific details of each item in George’s store! If you would like to stop in and visit George at  Gruhn Guitars (615-256-2033) the store is located in downtown Nashville at 400 Broadway and there is free parking behind the building.

On Friday June 25 I made a visit to Joe Glaser’s instrument repair company to pick up some gear he wanted to donate to my ReTune Nashville project.  Joe’s expertise has been said to be the best around and after visiting his facility he certainly has the volume of work to support the claim.  Loving the ability to turn any experience into a photo opportunity, I took along my camera just in case.  Joe started by taking me through his entire facility pointing out the flood damaged gear he was currently working on by such names as Keb Mo, Vince Gill, John Fogerty and so many others.  I asked if I could take some pictures and he allowed me to do so although some items were off limits to photos. What a great hour of learning about musical instruments and what his business does to fix many of these damaged and broken items.  I love shooting documentary style and would love to go back and cover Joe’s business from an editorial point of view, I enjoyed my visit and I walked away with some great pictures!  Joe graciously donated 8 guitars to ReTune Nashville (read previous post) from prominent artist that were not worth fixing, all of these items were stored at Soundcheck, a facility  that house’s most of  Nashville’s prominent musician’s gear.  I was blown away by what he shared with me and so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet this talented man in person!  Below are some of the photos I shot on Friday…enjoy!

This guitar was estimated to be worth a hundred thousand dollars and Joe believes it can be restored to it’s original look and sound.  He has a special machine that can grind the fret board down eliminating any warping that occurred from water damage, the other repairs are all done by hand.  It is amazing to think of the talent these guys have to bring items like this back after such destruction.

Scott Holyfield works on a vintage guitar (bellow) that was damaged in the May 2010 Nashville flood while in a storage shed at the Soundcheck facility.  The Cumberland River crested over 50 feet and flooded the facility damaging millions of dollars worth of musical gear.

Thank you for visiting and I hope that you enjoyed reading about Joe!  If you need a photographer I can guarantee you will be happy with both the experience and with the outcome so please keep Sheri O’Neal Photography in mind for all of your photo needs .  Give me a call or drop me an email and lets do business!

It has been a while since I have blogged, at least here for my photography site. For a little over a month I have been somewhat preoccupied with a project I started called “ReTune Nashville“. It is a flood relief effort to help raise money for Nashville uninsured musicians through the sale of artwork created from flood damaged musical instruments. For weeks I have been working hard with a team of people to launch ReTune Nashville as a new non-profit. These are several pictures of some of the instruments we have collected for the cause. I will be shooting more as the project picks up momentum including the artist working on their projects.  So far the interest has been great including news stories from Channel 2 and Fox News, stay tuned and be sure to check out ReTune!