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EDDIE KURTH - MUSIC, MARSHALLS & MEMORIES By Robert E. Martin 'Well if the bands' on time, you can get to work by nine; Cuz I've been takin' care of business, It's all right; Takin' care of Business, I'm workin' overtime.' -Bachman Turner Overdrive Back in 1974 when I was an impressionable and earnest college student, music and the people creating, fostering, and supporting it formed an intense fascination in my life. Apart from the glamour & excitement of the Rock 'n Roll lifestyle, the promise of freedom it presented, coupled with the joys it afforded, instilled a hunger within me to become more than a mere observer. I wanted to become a participant. And it was at this time of my life, when I would return home from college on the weekends, that I first got to know Bob Pierson and Eddie Kurth, the co-founders of Bay Music - a store that was then and remains today the foremost 'caretaker' of professional musicians in the Saginaw area, servicing not only the physical tools of the trade, but more important, nurturing the spiritual passion of people that makes music so important in the first place. For almost 30-years Bay Music has stood as a bastion to the power, potential, and magic of music and those who create it. And for 20 of those years, Eddie Kurth has stood at the helm of Bay Music, guiding it through shifting times and temporal fads, but always staying focused upon his commitment not only to musicians, but those groups & organizations that work within our community to broaden it. So it was with a tinge of sadness I heard the news that after nearly 30 years, Eddie was going to sell Bay Music to Rick Allen of Mid-Michigan Music (currently with locations in Midland & Bay City) and ride off into the sunset, closing a significant chapter not only in his own life, but on an important lexicon in the vocabulary of our cultural community. That the store is being placed in capable hands is a blessing. Yet, just as no two voices sing alike, the singularity of Eddie Kurth, the man who built the business, will be greatly missed. With this in mind, it seems entirely appropriate to sit down with the man that helped make local musical history for a talk about what built Bay Music to what it represents today, and what it feels like watching a significant era come to a close. Review: Were you always interested in music? I'm curious how the musical love bug first bit you. Eddie: One summer when I was around 14-years old I started playing guitar. There were three of us in the neighborhood fiddling with chords, but I didn't really tackle it until I started Delta College. This was 'Folk Time' in 1962 and everybody would sit around the Commons, strumming guitars, smoking cigarettes, and playing games like 'drop the penny'. Music was simple 3-chord stuff back then and The Kingston Trio was big. But then in February of 1963 when Ed Sullivan said, 'Ladies & Gentlemen, The Beatles!', everything changed for everybody in America. Review: Did you ever have a job in a field other than one related to music? Eddie: For a few years I was on the Board of Realtors and sold real estate with Bruce Donnelly, but interest rates soared to 7% and nobody in the U.S. at that time wanted to buy a house. So in November of '69, I went to work for Jack Gridley. He said he needed someone to help his Dad in the TV and Stereo department, and this was back when music stores and TV and stereo were integrated. After the first of the year he said that I'd sold more in the last month than they did all last year and wondered if I'd consider working full time, so from 1968 until the start of Bay Music in 1973, I worked at Gridley's. Fast Eddie Kurth meets Fast Eddie Van Halen, circa 1984 Review: What did you learn form that experience? Eddie: Some people go to college to learn business or accounting and I guess my tutelage was at Gridley's. I learned customer relations, buying, evaluating, and all the things you do in business. But it's funny, because when I was a kid I worked for Bill Dengler at Dengler's Pharmacy and Paul Hackstead at Hackstead's Service Center, and both those people ran businesses that people would envy. From them I learned that keeping a store clean was more than a little quirk and that it carried value. And I learned about creating an atmosphere the public felt comfortable walking into. Review: How did Bay Music actually form? Eddie: Back when I was at Gridley's I hired a friend by the name of Bob Pierson that I knew from 'band days'. He was a great technician that anchored the repair shop. We'd go to lunch and talk about how there was no place to buy Marshall amps or get the pro equipment people were asking about. Dick Wagner would stop in and buy all the amps he would use at Goose Lake, something like six big Fender Showmans and Meatloaf would walk in because Gridley's was a big store at the time, but what happened is that it would butt heads with competing interests. On the one hand you had this Mom & Pop store with sheet music and people looking at home organs, pianos, and furniture, and it was in direct opposition to the kid with long hair that had money and wanted to buy an amplifier. You had to tell the kid that wanted to drop $2,000, 'No, you can't turn the volume up because this little old lady wants to buy a $1.00 piece of sheet music. Bob and I thought that would be the death of a lot of music stores, so we decided to put something together that would be like going to a garage at our friends' homes, carrying products we knew people needed and were tools of the trade for the club musician. We felt there was a good chance of capturing the tri-cities and all these musicians, and that's what happened. We'd already sold thousands of dollars of equipment out of my garage before we even painted the store. Our first location at Little Bay Plaza where Radio Shack is was teeming. Then in 1982 Bob Pierson wanted to go back to school and I bought him out and moved here to our present location. The Ties that Bind: Eddie and Dick Wagner, circa 1982, and 20 years later Review: Weren't you one of the biggest retailers for Peavey in the nation at one time? Eddie: We'd carry Peavey, Acoustic and Marshall, bringing the three premium lines into the market. Also, back then there was almost no P.A. gear. You had a few companies, but everything was 100 watts with four 12's in a column and sort of redundant. We honed into speakers from Grand Rapids called Gallohan that had double 15's with horns because people wanted to not only hear the music but feel it. For about seven years any P.A. you heard at a club in the tri-cities came out of our store. Eventually our reputation grew. When bands were performing at the Civic Center, they would come in if they needed something. KISS would come in, AC/DC would come in. I remember when Angus Young walked out with $5,000 charged on his Mastercard. Heart would stop by, and once Eric Clapton visited to buy some gear. Review: What do you attribute your success to? Eddie: The relationship with the customer. We started with such a closed clientele of about 300 musicians and the public wasn't even necessarily aware we existed. To musicians, however, we were their salvation. Honestly, the friendships formed back then are still a basis of what the store does now. It's always been about service. If you practice Friday and have to be on stage that night and you drop a keyboard, Eddie would always make sure you got on stage, because we had enough inventory to cover everybody with anything. Plus, there has never been a week for 29 years that we didn't have a technician in the store. Review: Are there any anecdotes that stick in your mind over the years that you'd care to relate? Eddie: Well, the people you meet are the people you meet. You run across these 'stars' and its fun to meet them, but really it's the musicians you deal with year after year that become your friends that are important. The public looks at most musicians as local stars, not in the Hollywood sense of actors or the New York sense with five different sport teams, but people look up to musicians and see them as being in the public eye. The most interesting stuff isn't the names you meet, but the closeness in terms of relationships you form through the years. Those are the things you smile fondly upon. Review: Of course over the years many competitors have tried to replicate your success. What are your thoughts on that? Eddie: If I could say anything it's that I've always tried to take care of customers' needs whatever they are and not really worry. This is going to sound absurd to some people, but I have probably only walked into four other music stores in the state of Michigan over the last 30 years because I'm so busy dealing with my customers that I don't have time to drive to Detroit or elsewhere. Between my reps and trade shows I know what to do. In the last 10 years, though, as with most retailing, everything has become fragmented. You used to have three different guitar lines, just like 3 major cars, and now you have 12 manufacturers with dozens of models. Review: How does it feel to be winding down? Eddie: The analogy would be that when you pass 30 or 40 they say you are on the 'back nine' of the course. I've played a pretty good game and am chipping on the 18th green and maybe have two good putts left. The inevitability of your own aging and mortality becomes apparent after you turn 50 and I'll be 59 in a couple of months, so I look at it as an opportunity to get my compass re-oriented. I'm not going to lose or forget friends, certainly, but maybe now I'll have more time to spend with friends. One thing I am very proud of is that in 29 years I've never had to nor ever fired an employee. And there are a lot of people I'd like to thank - Bob Pierson, probably one of the most intelligent & diligent guys I know and a great friend. Plus I've been blessed with some of the finest musicians and salespeople in the tri-cities - Brian Bennett, Keith Schlott, Bobby Balderama, Paul Militello, Dave Dunham, Mike VanNorman, Mike Brush, Robert Kurth, Tom Shannon. Honestly, there are too many to mention. Review: Do you have any immediate plans? Eddie: I have a cottage that I've been remodeling for two years so finally I can finish that up. And now I'm becoming aware of my total family and hope to enjoy that experience. It's going to take me a year to close all the things I've got just from the store, because I'm a terrible 'accumulator'. It's my biggest fault. I've got so many old amps and guitars that I may become a big fan of E-bay. Review: Any final thoughts or things we haven't mentioned, Ed? Eddie: There's a time and a season for everything and I think it's going to be great. I'm glad to have my clientele well taken care of and leave them in capable hands. In a way I feel like a country doctor that finally has to tell his patients that he's going to retire but has a new young fella coming in, let me introduce him to you and he'll take good care of you. Bob Hughes and Dick Wagner both heard about it and said, 'Eddie, it's the end of an era', but I do have something that I'd like to say about that which you probably won't print. Review: What's that? Eddie: I think that Review Magazine is one of the major motivational forces for music in the tri-cities. I support the paper and it's events when I can, but as much as people say that I mean a lot to music in this area, I think The Review means as much if not more. The day The Review hangs it up that will truthfully be the end of an era. I'm just passing a torch and one day, Bob, somebody is going to have to get up and give you an award for all your years of dedication to music in the area. Review: Thanks, Ed. But like you, the things we do aren't only for money or recognition. Let's face it, accepting an award for that is a lot like accepting an award for making love to your wife. Hopefully, it runs deeper for both of us than that. Best of luck, buddy. You deserve everything you've worked so hard for all these years.
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