Tuesday, May 04, 2010 -

Andy Meek -  The Daily News

“Sweet.”

“Very cool.”

“It’s impossible to stay here less than 100 hours.”

Those are some of the most recent comments left in a guestbook that waits at the end of the tour for visitors to the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, which turns 10 years old this year.


Executive director John Doyle looks over the notes with a twinkle in his eye. The last of those comments came from a visitor who identified his hometown as Mexico City.

Doyle, who came onboard in 2003, is pleased with the visitors’ parting notes – tangible evidence that crowds are still flocking to and appreciating a place where the ghosts of a hip-shaking, rambunctious era of rock music in Memphis come alive again.

Those ghosts emanate, like the proverbial genie in a bottle, from headsets on which are stored 300 minutes of narration and 100 songs that accompany listeners through the museum. And they provide the back-story for exhibits like Elvis Presley’s Army uniform, Sun Studios’ original soundboard and control panel and many other gems.

Several weeks ago, the museum signed a new exhibit agreement with the Smithsonian Institute, which researched and developed the Memphis museum. The new agreement basically extends by six years the original 10-year exhibit agreement that expired this year.


The agreement spells out the curatorial and conservation responsibilities of the museum.

It’s one of the many signs the museum is turning a page.

The recession is another.

“One thing we were scared about this year, as the (Memphis) Convention & Visitors Bureau started telling us conventions were getting tough, was seeing group tours dry up,” Doyle said. “But knock on wood, we’re not seeing it.”


March was a great month for the museum. Doyle said the museum had planned for a monthly attendance of 4,200 people. About 5,500 people ended up coming through its doors.

“It’s been 10 hard years of, is it going to make it? Is it going to sell enough tickets? And all that sort of thing,” Doyle said. “Now, fortunately, we’re to the point where we’re exceeding 50,000 in attendance each year.”

The museum recently launched an oral history project in conjunction with Rhodes College titled, appropriately enough for a music museum, ‘Liner Notes: Words Behind the Music.’ The project is an attempt to record and preserve interviews from icons of the city’s music industry.

Rhodes College students recently conducted interviews for the project with Memphians such as former Stax Records owner and CEO Al Bell and Ardent Studious founder John Fry


Another addition to the museum: The recently installed neon sign of the former Poplar Tunes record store at 308 Poplar Ave., which now towers above museum exhibits around it.

Memphian Hal Lanksy rescued the sign after the store’s closure in the fall.

A piece of Memphis music history died when Poplar Tunes shut down. The store was within walking distance of the Lauderdale Courts apartments where Elvis once lived.

A sign posted at the store announcing its closure said a number of economic factors had “reduced the traditional record store to road kill with a slight pulse.”

The museum, meanwhile, continued to mature last year. Thanks to funding from FedEx Corp. and the Assisi Foundation, the museum bought 200 mp3 players.

They now serve as audio guides for museum guests. And the guests use them in different ways.

Elementary school groups tend to gravitate toward the songs and whip through the museum in 30 minutes.

Doyle said other tourists, however, take it slower. Some of them spend as much as three hours soaking up the musical history of the city about which Elvis once said: “What do I miss about Memphis? Everything.”