About 2 1/2 years ago, before I even thought of opening a music store, several of us started a "traditional acosutic music club," primarily to have open jams for all comers. Our metropolitan area has a population of about 400,000 people. We have open jams two or three nighta a week, in different parts of town. We've had over 1,000 people come through the jams. They get bigger, and split, every week
    What led me to open the store is that no one within 100 miles stocked fiddles, open-backed banjos, autoharps or dulcimers. Later, i found that their were very few resonator banjos, resonator guitars or up-right basses avaviable. i added them. People really appreciate the store. I have people drive from NASHVILLE, because there isn't a decent acoustic music store there, esprcially for fiddles, mandolins, or dobros. The music world is musch bigger than guitars.
      We recently got a "guitar center" in our area. It's loud, primarily electric, and our types of musicians don't like to go in the place. One wag said that, " It was like walking through the gates of auditory hell."   They had hundreds of guitars for rock and roll, two cheap mandolines, no fiddles, no upright bases, two cheap dobros, and three banjos. Most of them were fener products.
    I feel very badly about being the music store that sends Guitar Center out of the county, with their accursed tail between their legs. I don't want their instruments or their clietelle.
    What we retailers need is a quality manufacturer, taht would honor their territories and support their independent dealers. Marin, Gibson, Taylor, and Takamini don't measure up.
      I suspect that we dealers could almost make it with acosutic instruments other than guitars.

Thanks!!!