veteran leadership brings the company into its 90th year - Music Inc ...

RETAILER EXCELLENCE
R
The Manhattan location, on 34th street
in sight of the Empire State Building,
is jam-packed with inventory of all sorts.
SAMMY My grandfather was a bandleader, and relatively
successful. But like any bandleader you only
work when there are gigs. My grandmother pawned
her engagement ring for $400, they got a lease and
started the business. That was Brooklyn, 1924.
PAUL There was no place to play, so when I came
home from school every day I would open boxes.
We lived in three rooms behind the store.
JERRY Come dinner time, if a customer walked in,
he would wipe his mouth, go down, wait on them,
come back and finish eating.
PAUL We didn’t start to expand until after he died.
We moved across the street to a corner lot, and that
made a big difference. After a while we noticed that
many people were coming from Long Island, and
we decided to open a store in Long Island.
DAVID My grandmother worked until she was physically
unable to do it. Well into her 80s. She had an
incredible ability to look at any receipt and add it up
in her head and know whether it was right or wrong.
THE INDUSTRY TODAY
JERRY It’s hard — and it gets harder all the time.
There was a time when if you saw a keyboardist
there would be a whole array of equipment — a
couple of keyboards, a bunch of effects. Now it’s all
computerized. So before where a guy might have
spent $4,000, now he’s spending $1,200, maybe less.
RICHARD By all accounts that I have seen, the industry
is probably smaller today than it was in 2006.
And then, of course, we have brilliant competitors.
All the top players in the business are difficult to
keep up with. The e-commerce guys are extremely
good at what they do. Everyone goes after every opportunity
to make a sale.
SAMMY There are a lot of people coming into the industry
who are not from the industry. What are you
going to do? Say “boo-hoo”? They’re not going away.
DAVID The environment is definitely tougher these
days — and it’s not just tougher for the music
industry. It’s tougher for all because there are so
many huge competitors out there. Amazon alone.
You have to be part of it, but at the same time they
are extremely difficult. Walmart is another one.
There is a huge concentration of power in a few
companies right now. It hasn’t been like that since
the age of the robber barons.
PAUL I lived through the Great Depression. There
was a time when a man came in to have his violin
bow rehaired. My father used to do that work.
75 cents. And my mother said, “Do you have the
money to pay that now?” And he said, “Yes.” So
she took his money and went to the grocery store.
So is it better now? It’s better now.
28 I MUSIC INC. I DECEMBER 2013