Music Row Years
Davidson Amplifier Repair opened November 1, 1993
at
812 19th Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee.
In January
1995, I moved my business
to 19 B Music Square West, in a
building
known to the music business as "The Barn". In
August, 1999, Davidson Amplifier Repair
moved to 1608 17th Avenue
South,
as Music Row expanded South toward Belmont College.
In the Spring of 2004, I moved my business
to a private location in Lockeland Springs,
a few blocks past the Radio
Cafe. After being open daily for
walk-in service for over ten
years,
Davidson Amplifier Repair is now open by appointment only.
1993 and 1994
Above is Davidson Amplifier Repair's first Music Row
location,
at 812 19th Avenue South. It had a convenient loading dock at the front
door.
Music Row was just buzzing back then. It was incredibly exciting!
I remember my first conversation with Ruyter Suys. Apparently her
husband Blaine Cartwright, of Nine Pound Hammer, had played a
rough gig where somebody dumped a beer down his Marshall,
shattering the tubes. A few days later he arrived at my shop on a
Sunday night,
having carried his 100W Marshall head all the way from his apartment.
I sold him tubes, biased his amp for nothing, and gave him a ride home.
We became good friends and helped each other a lot. Later Blaine and
Ruyter
formed Nashville Pussy and were signed by Mercury. I sold them my
Gibson SG when business was bad, and my guitar became famous,
even though I didn't.
This location on 20th Ave. So. was home to an old frame building where Blaine Cartwright
and Ruyter Suys of Nashville Pussy lived from 1993-1995. The South Street Restaurant
is still there, to the right. They lived on the second floor and kept their front door open so that
the apartment always smelled like smoke from the restaurant's barbecue. In 1995
the place burned, and two of the best friends I ever had moved to Athens, Georgia.
It's hard to believe that this Layla Rul place has replaced the old dump.
This is the South Street Restaurant. It's just like it was when I got here in 1993.
It's great for shrimp, barbecue, beer and hanging out with songwriters. I still
remember hanging out drinking beer with Hank III's fiddle player, Michael McCanless,
after their performance at Uptown Mix. Michael is no longer with us;
a terrible loss to Music City and music.
This is my original location viewed from the street, 12 years later.
My neighbors included Dixiana, Martina MacBride's management, Confederate Railroad's
management, and the Perfect Ten Nail Salon. I admit that I miss those days when Garth-mania
was at its peak, and beautiful women wandered down the streets with backpacks and guitars,
looking for a deal. I was constantly meeting key figures in the industry and had no clue
who they were, being from rock and roll and not country. Silly me!
1995-1999
Above is shown my second location at 19 Music Square West, Nashville,
otherwise known as the "Barn". My shop was on the right side of the building
facing #15, then MARFAC and NSAI. The building's owner was Gerald Fisher,
a colorful character who would go around the building with a box of donuts
once a week and see how you were doing. He was the first person to ever program
a computer in Nashville around 1960. It was a vacuum tube computer. He was
always ready to share a funny story or some "free advice". I learned a thing or
two from him, and was thrilled to bump into him renovating a property near my
current location. No donuts, but funny stories and advice in abundance!
This is Robert's Western World, a rockin' country bar that also sells boots,
on Broadway in Music City. On my first New Year's Eve in Nashville, Jay MacDowell
called me at 4 p.m. . It seems that while recording the new Hellbilly album, some
genius had put a blanket over Jay's Quad Reverb amp to quiet the hum. This
covered the pilot light and so the amp got left on overnight with the blanket still on.
Ouch! I told him I would try to fix it that night if he would pick it up New Year's Day.
I did, and he did. In April 1995 he was playing a show at Robert's Western World and
Chet Atkins came to see the new band. A few minutes after Chet sat down, front and center,
a tube fell out of Jay's amp. He reached in back and plugged the tube in.....WRONG!
He turned the amp back on and smoke erupted from the back....with Chet watching.
Jay turned up at my shop the next day and I fixed it for that night's show. Chet was there again...
and BR5-49 was signed a few weeks later. ( Obviously Chet knew that anyone who can get
an amp fixed so fast was a very happening dude!) I remember taking Ruyter to see
BR5-49 at Robert's when Blaine was in Canada with Nine Pound Hammer. It was so
crowded we couldn't get in, so we wandered around and spotted the other half of
Hellbilly playing rockabilly on Second Avenue with a hat on the sidewalk in front
of them. It's a tough business, folks! Think twice before you break your heart on Broadway.
After I moved to 19 B Music Square West in 1995, I spent an entire summer
watching, feeling, and getting generally annoyed by the blasting for this building.
If you dig in Nashville, you strike limestone bedrock in a foot or two because this
area was under the ocean for millions of years. The blasting was courteously scheduled
to go off right before 10:00 a.m., and between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., so it wouldn't
interrupt the recording sessions which are scheduled for 10:00, 2:00, and 6:00.
It was Garth's very own special building, but he flaked on Capitol Records and his
minions never occupied it. It was owned by Gaylord for some years and now
houses Word Entertainment. It bears a suspicious resemblance to the White House.
It's built out of styrofoam sprayed with a thin layer of concrete.
Trust me, I watched it go up.
This photo shows Starstruck Entertainment and the United Artists tower just
one block south on the other side of Music Square West in 2005. UA was up
when I arrived in Music City, but Starstruck was just being started. They didn't
blast the bedrock; they chiseled 20 feet down with gigantic jackhammers attached
to backhoes. The hammering went on all night so it wouldn't interrupt the 10,2,6
recording sessions. How thoughtful! How considerate! No wonder Chet Atkins
roused the CMA to stop Reba from putting a helicopter landing pad on the roof
of Starstruck. I think folks had had enough of Reba as a noisy neighbor.
This was started in January 1994 and finished after I got to 19 B.
2000-2004
From 2000 to 2004, the shop was at 1608 17th Avenue South. Unfortunately I can't locate
any pictures from this period; and there are no significant buildings close by. I tried
branching out into custom audio at this point. I built some custom amplifiers, and a tube
tester and mic pre or two. I also did a fair number of tube tape head conversions to
mic pres, such as Ampex, Berlandt, and so on. I was heavily involved in designing a
completely new style of tube recording compressor when the property changed hands,
and I agreed with the new owner that my space was overdue for remodeling. So I
gave up the Music Row rat race and moved to Lockeland Springs in East Nashville,
about 3 blocks southeast of then Mayor Purcell's house.
Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 By Jon Davidson Nashville
