Spend enough time in Tucson’s music scene and you will start to hear the term “the Tucson sound.” It comes straight from the musicians’ mouths, from the fans, from the reviews and is embedded in our long history of musicality.

What does it mean exactly? Well, like any other classification or genre identifier, there is no one right answer. Tucson sound, is maybe best described as music which embodies the preserving spirit of dwellers in a desert environment, which from the start appeared so inhabitable. Maybe it speaks to a certain mysticism that permeates beneath the hot sands. Maybe it is influence drawn from country, Latin music and desert rock.

Though the answer is subjective, many of Tucson’s die hard music enthusiasts can speak to what this sound has meant to them. Nostalgia is a reoccurring theme.

Club Congress, 311 East Congress St., has long cultivated a space to showcase the unique voice of Tucson artists and kind of stands as a museum documenting the search for this “sound.” The historic venue will take that niche and turn it literal with their upcoming “Tucson Rock n Roll Museum” exhibit.

The vision for the collection is to pay tribute to Tucson’s music history over the past half century, through the help of the community who was a part of it.

Congress is reaching out to this city’s musicians and fans for rock and roll memorabilia to include in the community driven museum. The guidelines are light and they are welcoming posters, photographs, newspaper clips and videos which help tell the story of “the sound.”

Contributions do not have to be limited to images from concerts. Visual documentation of backstage experiences, parties, places and people are all being sought after. As long as they scream, Tucson rock, Congress wants them.

Congress will gladly make copies of original work, so that the owner can hold on to their possibly sweat-stained piece of history, or will accept high resolution, digital copies of memorabilia.

The exhibition is a part of the hotel’s month long celebration of their 30th anniversary and will debut September 2, ending on the September 30.

Submissions to the Tucson Rock N Roll Museum are due by Friday, July 31 and can be addressed to Entertainment and Booking Director David Slutes.

For questions, contact Slutes at david@hotelcongress.com.