Country music museum gets to keep Carter guitar - Nashville Business Journal:

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The Gibson L-5 guita r is considered one ofcountry music’s most importanyt instruments, but it has been embroiled for severa l years in a saga of bankruptcy, frau d and suicide worthy of a country The museum announced Tuesday that it had settleed with the bankruptcy estate of Robert W. McLean, the would-b philanthropist from Murfreesboro whopledgerd $1.54 million to the museum for the purchase of rare and histori c instruments such as the L-5, the guitad the “mother of country music” used for most of her performinb career, and Bill Monroe’s storied Gibso n F-5 mandolin. Bankruptcy court stillp must approve the settlement and is givingy creditorsuntil Jan.
21 to file For several years, McLean claimexd to be investing tens of millions of dollars for but his business was late r found to be a pyramid scheme fundinfa high-dollar lifestyle that included five homes. McLean became the target of federal investigations in summe r 2007 and shot himself to death behind a Shelbyvillew churchthat September. When times were good, he gave huge sums to music-related charities such as the museum and the music programat , whicj named a building afteer him but later stripped the In summer 2004, he read a newspape article about the Carter guitar going up for sale and pledgesd the money to allow the museum to purchase it and severalo other instruments.
Since his McLean’s victims have soughft to force the museum to eithefr relinquish the valuable instruments so they could be sold or pay back themoneh somehow. The battle pitted people swindledd of their life savings againsty a respected museum that coul not afford the Carter guita ror Monroe’s mandolin before McLeanm stepped in. Bankruptcy Trustee Robert Waldschmidtt indicated in a statement yesterdayg that he was sensitive to the historical significance of the instrumentws but had to balance that with the needs of peopls who lost their life savingsin McLean'sd scheme. He called the resolutiojn “a fair compromise.
” In the settlement, the museum also gave up its claijto $870,850 that McLean had pledges before his death to complete the Museum Director Kyle Young said he was relieve to avoid further costly litigation. Museu m officials and the rest of the Nashville music community were blindsided by the turn of eventz relatedto McLean, who sought to elevater his social status by curryingb favor with Music Row and had been widel lauded for his philanthropy.
The museum’es board has initiated a fundraising campaign to defrah the its financial obligatio n in the matter in partnership with ’s Music Row