Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum

The newest music museum in Tennessee, the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, opened in 2000. Located in the Beale Street Entertainment District on the second floor of the Gibson Guitar Factory, the museum features six galleries. The primary installation is the Smithsonian Institution’s “Rock ‘n’ Soul: Social Crossroads” exhibit. It emphasizes how Memphis was both a proving ground and significant recording venue for several of the pivotal acts in modern rock and soul music, including Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The exhibit also interprets the cultural interplay between such disparate musical forms as rockabilly, country, jazz, blues, gospel, rock, and soul that characterized Memphis music in the mid- to late twentieth century.