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| It's almost as much a museum of rock and blues artifacts as it is a music merchandise store. On every wall in Strings & Things' front room there hang photos, most autographed, of such blues legends as Albert King and more recent rock stars like Billy Gibbons of Z.Z. Top. Old instruments, each worth more than maybe 10 new ones, dangle from the walls and look like attic refuse to the untrained eye. Among them is a priceless 1957 Precision bass, hanging just above a display of photographs that show U2's Adam Clayton playing the instrument when the group cut tracks for their Rattle and Hum album at Memphis' Sun Studio. There are also museumlike displays too, such as the store's most recent acquisition -- a briefcase, found in an Arkansas pawnshop, that was formerly owned by B.B. King and is still fully stocked with his |
 personal items. But the display around which the universe revolves, or at least the gawking in this Midtown establishment, is a glass case hanging opposite the front door. Inside it, like |
a Faberge egg or an
Elvis jumpsuit, is a 1956 Fender Stratocaster once
owned by Eric Clapton. It is, in fact, the very guitar pictured on the cover of a Derek
and the Dominoes album, and reportedly the instrument Clapton picked ever so melodically
on such hits as "Layla," "Bell Bottom Blues," and "Little
Wing." "We're lucky to have it," says Strings and Things co-owner and president Charlie Lawing. "It's a real piece of history." But, according to the 46-year old Lawing, he and his partner Chris Lovell, now 44, are lucky to have a lot more. After starting the business out of Lawing's apartment in 1971 with only $100 and four guitars, Strings & Things has, in 23 years, become not only one of the busiest music stores in the Mid-South -- doing $3 million worth of business in 1993 - but a recognized name nationally. |
