Musician fills shop with career mementos

From between gleaming Fender and Epiphone guitars hanging on the walls, some of the music world’s most recognizable faces peer back at you.

Johnny Cash beams at the camera backstage. Marty Stuart lounges around a table on a tour bus. Loretta Lynn playfully smiles for a posed photograph and Dickey Betts stands ready with a guitar slung over his shoulders.

The photographs capture different times and places throughout the country. But in each one, a long-haired man, often wearing shades and a denim jacket, is prominently featured.

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“The pictures are really the people that I’ve been fortunate to know all these years,” said Frank Dean, one of Franklin’s most well-known musicians and that sunglassed, jean-jacket wearing man. “There’s 8 million stories here.”

Inside his guitar shop in downtown Franklin, Dean has created a tribute to a lifetime in and around roots and rock music. Framed photographs show him with everyone from Emmylou Harris to Johnny Cash to his good friend Marty Stuart. Signed albums, backstage passes and other memorabilia hang on the walls. An autographed 1958 songbook featuring Cash and other treasures are tucked in glass display cases.

Dean had held on to the items for so long that he thought it would be fun to share with other music lovers who make their way to his shop.

“These are all different things I’ve acquired over the years — backstage passes of friends, photos, things like that. I’ve always tried to pick things up,” he said.

A cartoonish statuette of James Brown sings “I Feel Good” with the push of a button. Illustrations by noted Indianapolis cartoonist Wayne Bertsch of Dean and his bands that ran in NUVO are framed around the store.

In a display case, Dean had hung up an authentic 1949 handmade Nathan Turk Western suit. The suit is the same kind that Hank Williams would have worn. Marty Stuart, a country-rockabilly star, gave it to Dean on his 50th birthday.

“(Marty) also gave me a knife that came out of Hank Williams’ tackle box,” he said.

For more than 30 years, Dean has been a mainstay in the Indiana and national music scenes. In addition to performing solo, he’s been a part of highly regarded bands such as Sindacato, The Snakehandlers and Blue DeVille.

Throughout his career, he’s served as an opening act or performed along onstage with some of the heaviest hitters in country and rock music. The list reads like a roster of Hall of Fame inductees: George Jones, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Junior Brown, Dwight Yoakam, and many, many more.

“I tell people, I’ve been the luckiest guy in the world,” he said. “People always ask how’d this all happen, and I always say I was just standing around. Which just means I was always available.”

Over this time, he’s been able to pick up little mementos and reminders of his adventures.

Every piece has a story.

One night when Dean was playing with his band at the Indianapolis blues bar The Slippery Noodle, Dan Aykroyd happened to be in attendance. The storied comedic actor, who once played one of the Blues Brothers, asked if he could get up on stage and play with them. There’s a photo of the two of them riffing onstage.

In another, Dean poses with Harris, a Country Music Hall of Famer whose angelic voice has endured for nearly 50 years.

“I’ve done quite a few shows with Emmy. She’s just as nice as everyone says she is,” he said.

Yet another photo shows Dean with Kris Kristofferson after a long day out partying. They lost track of time, and were late getting back to Kristofferson’s show.

“He didn’t even have time to change his shirt; you can still see it has a hole in it,” Dean said.

One of Dean’s prized possessions is an intricately decorated guitar, created in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Byrds’ seminal album “Sweetheart of the Rodeo.” On the instrument’s body is a recreation of the album’s cover artwork.

“I was fortunate enough to go backstage and have them all sign it. I was a huge Byrds fan growing up, so that was a really big deal to me,” he said.

Another prize is the Cash songbook originally published in 1958. Cash, in the early stages of his music career at that point, stands fresh-faced and young with a guitar in his hand, not yet adopting the Man in Black persona that later defined his work.

The piece was so rare that even Cash himself was intrigued.

“At first, he didn’t want to sign it, because he wanted to buy it. He did not have one any more. But I finally convinced him that wasn’t going to happen,” Dean said.

Some of the items in Dean’s makeshift museum also capture noteworthy places from his life. A picture shows the old venue Mockingbird Hills in Anderson, where Dean saw his first country music concert: Buck Owens and the Buckaroos.

An ashtray in the display case came from the Cotton Club in Helena, Arkansas, which caught Dean’s attention because it advertised pig’s knuckles. A photograph shows Dean and a group of people in front of Stax Records, the Memphis record label known for soul singers such as the Staple Singers and Otis Redding.

“It would take a day to tell all of the stories behind these things,” Dean said.

Much of his collection had been in storage for years. A few years ago, he started putting some of the photos and other items up on the walls of Frank’s Guitars.

“I didn’t want anyone to think it was an ego thing. I was really just trying to share it with everybody,” he said. “But I didn’t want people to think I was bragging, so I took a lot of it down, and people threw a fit.”

Fans and music enthusiasts had come to Frank’s Guitars to see these items and wanted to learn more. So earlier this year, he put the photos back up, bought some display cases and started showing it off.

“We have had people who came in for things like the Indy 500 or the Brickyard or Formula One, they come from as far away as Australia and New Zealand,” Dean said. “They’ll say, ‘We were online and heard about this place, and since we were in America anyway, we’d just come here.’ They’re just thrilled. And I’m glad people embrace seeing this stuff.”

Dean encourages people to come in any time the store is open. He’s happy to walk people through the past, if he’s not busy with other customers, and it allows him to relive some of his best memories as well.

“It’s been a lifetime labor of love,” he said. “It’s weird, it’s been going on so long, people look at the pictures and say, ‘Is that you, with the long black hair?’”

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Frank’s Guitars

What: An old-school guitar shop featuring used and new guitars, as well as amps, bass guitars, mandolins, banjos, dobros and accessories.

Who: Owned by Frank Dean, a longtime musician and member of bands such as Sindacato and The Snakehandlers.

Where: 55 E. Jefferson St., Franklin

Memorabilia: Dean had collected mementos from more than 30 years in the music business, including signed photographs, album covers and other unique items. He had displayed the memorabilia throughout the store, and invites people to come in and look around.

Store hours: 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, noon to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, noon to 6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

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