There's Reality, And Then There's The E! Online Skeptics and Urban Myths Haters

Mimosa: So....is Granny headed to Nashville to save her waterlogged zucchini?

Jakra777 / Oh " so" Leery: I guess her goats were doing the back stroke while Granny was doing the hula. I rather watch the goats. LOL

erniesmom: I wonder is she brought her Yacht to Nashville so she can continue to deliver her Meals on Wheels. Those poor people must be starving by now. Next thing we'll see Dufus dressed like the Captain...Anyone picture Gilligan?

maclen: Keith Urban: I may have lost everything...is old news already! OH NO! I hope the damage to orb's recording equipment doesnt effect the "quality"...or the "commercial viability" of orb's next cd! I'm sure they'll be a song dedicated to the flood...you know something thoughtful and profound...perhaps..."An ode to my Soggy Guitar"...or something as unforgettable as this..."Baby come here next to me, I'll show you how good it can be I'll breathe each breath you breathe I can, pour out everthing I am"


nomorefan: I was reading some news articles about the flooding, and in the comments many people were saying how sorry they felt for the artists. A person came along and said to not feel sorry for them. If they lost equipment, more than likely it is all fully insured due to traveling and storing it. The only hassle is buying everything again.



Valuable Guitars Ruined Or At Risk

At four hastily arranged warehouses around town, technicians are trying to save Nashville's guitars.

Tens of millions of dollars' worth of guitars, as well as drums, amplifiers and concert stage sets were submerged during the flood under 3½ feet of water in a warehouse along the Cumberland River banks.

Six hundred musicians — from big stars such as Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and LeAnn Rimes to Nashville's lesser-known working artists — stored their equipment at Soundcheck Nashville, the largest music storage in town.

Some instruments are legendary in music circles, vintage pieces that are irreplaceable.

"This is the music version of the Louvre flooding," said Ed Beaver, a musician and guitar repairer who had equipment there. "If you consider that major artists have instruments not only of monetary value but historical value, it's scary."

After three days of waiting for floodwaters to go down, Soundcheck allowed some musicians in Friday morning to retrieve gear from its 160,000-square-foot storage and rehearsal space.

An estimated 1,000 guitars, 2,000 amplifiers and hundreds of drum sets were damaged.
30 years of gear

Wearing rubber boots and gloves was Michael Spriggs, an A-list session player for 25 years whose credits include albums for Faith Hill, Reba McEntire, Trace Adkins and Eddie Rabbitt.

He made his way through sludge and puddles in an unlit hallway to his 5-by-10-foot storage locker — a space that had been temperature and humidity controlled pre-flood. It was now dank and smelly.

The small room contained all of the gear Spriggs had acquired over a 30-year career: three dozen vintage guitars, 16 amplifiers and audio control panels.

A 1931 Dobro disintegrated when he lifted it out of a water-filled case. An original Taylor 510 guitar, more than 20 years old, had buckled and warped. A Larrivee DLX guitar, hand- inlaid with mother-of-pearl, was destroyed. Some $20,000 worth of amplifiers, reverb machines and microphones were severely damaged.

Of the 13 guitars in his main cartage — the trunk that he routinely brings to recording studios or performances — eight appear to be a total loss, and five may have a shot at being repaired.


"At the end of the day, I'm one guy of many who've lost gear there," Spriggs said.

"But the biggest tragedy is cumulatively. If you put us all together, all our stuff is music history. You're never going to hear that 510 guitar sound from Blue (a Rimes album) or Big Time and Dreamin' Out Loud (by Adkins) or the Faith Hill songs.

"Not just these, but all the songs you hear on the radio? All these instruments were making that music. And they're lost," Spriggs said.
Big stars' gear at risk

Some of Music City's biggest stars stored nearly every instrument and all of their concert tour equipment in the warehouse. That included Urban, who had to borrow a guitar to play at WSMV-TV's benefit concert on Thursday night.

Country singer Jo Dee Messina's elaborate concert sets, including elevators, microphones, instruments and lighting, were flooded. Paisley's props and dozens of instruments for his upcoming H2O tour were stored at the facility.

"My guitar tech is spending like a broker on the stock exchange floor" to replace the gear, Paisley told The Associated Press last week.

Many musicians — like Spriggs, who was without insurance — can't afford to replace their losses so quickly. Three-quarters of all Nashville's working musicians have gear at Soundcheck, estimated Everett Lybolt, general manager for Sound Image, a Soundcheck competitor that was not affected by the flood.

Soundcheck owner Ben Jumper said Friday that it's unlikely the flood insurance he carried will be of any help to musicians.

"We have insurance, but nowhere near to cover this," Jumper said. "It's only going to cover a small amount. A lot of this stuff is irreplaceable."
Saving guitars

While individual musicians assess damage to their gear, a trio of Nashville's elite luthiers, guitar technicians Joe Glaser, George Gruhn and Ed Beaver, have started triage efforts, setting up at four warehouses rented by Soundcheck to dry out and assess equipment.

"We are trying to stabilize these instruments until we can decide what to do with them next," Glaser said. About 20 volunteers planned to examine flood-retrieved gear over the weekend, with volunteers in other states standing by to receive valuable instruments in need of repair.

"We're all just motivated by one thing here: We want to save Nashville's guitars. This is our history here," Glaser said.

At one South Nashville warehouse, drummer Rich Redmond opened a large storage container to find small drums half full of sloshing brown water. An old RCA amplifier used by Chet Atkins was among his soaked gear. An $8,000 German-made Sonor drum as large as a washing machine sat in a foot of water in its case.

"These were my pride and joy," said Redmond, drummer for country star Jason Aldean. "It's like that with everybody here. There's no place else on the planet that had this much stuff for this many musicians stored in one place. There's no other place that housed this much music culture. It's just a very sad moment in music history."