Forrest York Guitars - Murfreesboro, TN

123 E. Main Street, Murfreesboro, TN 37130

http://www.forrestyorkguitars.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Forrest-York-Guitars/294081367302257

Photo courtesy of Google Maps

Before having the inclination to open his own guitar store, Forrest York spent 15 years in a recording studio, followed by 15 years managing another guitar store. He’d been looking for a space where he could set up his own shop. When the interior design store on Main Street closed in 2011, it was a perfect find because his wife was using another room in the building to teach a keyboard lab class.

As a small and family-owned and operated enterprise, York says his is not “just a guitar store.” The mission statement on his website (designed by his son) states that they wish to “empower our customers with great instruments, professional lessons, repairs, and the knowledge needed to get the most out of being a musician.”

York’s day-to-day is filled with repairs and modifying instruments. Customers will also encounter a constantly rotating inventory of unique guitars. He carries Gibson, Martin, Fender and even handmade models. York relies on finds from yard sales or consignments shops. All are very carefully curated because he wants customers to find, “good specialty guitars, not some cookie cutter [model].”

Located on the city’s “square,” only miles from the absolute geographic center of the state of Tennessee, Forrest York Guitars is in a 100 year-old building that was a doctor’s office long ago. “There’s a room in the back with lead walls,” York reports, “I was told it was where the first x-ray room in the county was located.”

Today, it’s where musicians can find guitars, amps, pedals, parts, and music lessons in guitar, keyboards, piano and voice.

While he loves that his family gets to work together under one roof, he has encountered one hiccup in having such a “generic” address at 123 E. Main Street: “People joke with me that it’s not real…I applied for a credit application and the guy thought I wasn’t giving a real address.”