NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WDRB) -- Greg McCurdy doesn't mind being called "the crypt keeper" of the Musicians Memorial Garden. In fact, he's proud of it.

"This is an idea I've had for many, many years," he said.

The "memorial garden" consists of more than 180 paper "headstones" in the New Albany resident's front yard. Each tombstone bears the name, birth date, date of death, cause of death and musical details about famous musicians — local and national — who have passed on.

"I taught anatomy and physiology, microbiology and genetics for 43 years," McCurdy said. "During that time, I didn't have any time to do anything like this."

But all of that changed.

"I retired and I thought, 'This is it,'" he said.

Each of the names on the headstones has special meaning for McCurdy.

'Musicians Memorial Garden' created by Greg McCurdy in his New Albany, Indiana back yard

"I was a musician, and these are all people who inspired me in some way," McCurdy said. "And I thought, 'What a way to give back to these people and to bring their names back in front of the public and let the public see, hey, there are people who gave us what we've got today.'"

Each name is a special link to a song, a lyric or a musical style.

"Elvis Presley and you've got John Lennon, who now has been dead longer than he was living," McCurdy said. "And then you've got people like Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Kobain, Jerry Lee Lewis, who was just added.

"If it weren't for these groundbreakers that we see here, music as it exists today really would not be music like it is."

But it's not just the "big names" of Nashville, New Orleans and Chicago that have a special place in McCurdy's crypt.

"On the other side of the driveway, there are local musicians," he said. "Louisville and southern Indiana have such a marvelous musical history."

You could say there's nothing political about this graveyard — but you would be wrong.

"All of these are elections signs," McCurdy said. "I found a company that sold me election signs that were blank. I trimmed the tops off. My wife put the lines on them. I did all the lettering and the artwork."

And the memorial has only grown.

"I had 100 last year," he said. "I've got 185 as of last night."

McCurdy said anyone is welcome to visit the memorial on Brookwood Drive in New Albany. He said he'll leave it up for a few days after Halloween.

"I love giving tours to people and telling them the stories about some of the artists that are out here," he said. "What I want them to get out of this is that these are the people who laid the groundwork for musicians today."

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