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New Shop Brings Excitement to Old Glendora Village

Before 8 a.m. on any Saturday, you’ll see a steady stream of people head to Classic Coffee to get their cuppa joe before they head south a couple doors to Strings Music, Glendora Village’s guitar shop that’s bringing new excitement to downtown.

Inside Strings, they’re getting ready for the free weekly concert. Chairs are being set up in rows and musicians are lining up guitars they’ll play during the two-hour show. Passersby stick their head in the door to check out what’s happening on the stage located at the front of the shop. Those in the know already have their seats, looking forward to a rare opportunity to enjoy the talents of a world-class musician or band, up close and oh-so personal. Only a few short feet separate performer from the audience, and for fellow musicians, this is prime territory to watch some serious strumming and pickin’.

Nowhere else in Southern California can you enjoy that kind of talent for free, hands down.

And nowhere else can one find the unique, high-end, one-of-a-kind guitars that Gayl Swinehart displays for sale on Strings’ walls. The shop is like a museum of top-of-the-line, to say the least most-desired fretted products aficionados want. The only difference is you can touch, let alone play, these precious museum pieces, with Gayl’s assistance, of course. Just look for the tall man with the beard, twinkling eyes behind rimless glasses and wearing a hat, which can be any color, red, purple, blue and any style – porkpie, even a Civil War era cavalry officer’s hat.

Speaking of fretted products, that’s how Strings started. Gayl and Mona Swinehart, married for 42 years, had a guitar business for a dozen years in La Verne that operated mostly on the Internet at www.frettedproducts.com, where buyers from all over the world can still get their fix for fine guitars.

Hard-to-find brands such as Huss & Dalton, Bourgeois and Santa Cruz Guitar Company are among those instruments hanging on the walls. “These are brands that Martin and Taylor players dream about someday owning,” says Gayl Swinehart, and he makes it so easy for those dreams to come true.

Beside the “boutique” makers, Strings’ inventory is a literal who’s who list of guitar makers, types and woods: Geiger, Takamine, Hofner, Epiphone, Martin, Ovation, R. Taylor, Tanglewood, G & L Guitars, Hamer and Hamer USA, resonator guitars, electric, hard-to-find vintage models. Gayl’s got it all, and if he doesn’t have it, he’ll find it. And a full line of accessories are for sale, too – guitar straps, harmonicas, amplifiers (Pignose, Genz-Benz, Ultrasound) – everything a guitarist needs.

Strings offers guitars from $99 to $20,000; yes, that’s right $20,000 for the custom Huss & Dalton orchestra model of Brazilian rosewood, red spruce top, Koa bound fretboard, Spring Vine fretboard inlay and full body Abalone trim. “The folks at Huss & Dalton tell me this is the finest guitar they have ever built!” Gayl explains.

Strings/FrettedProducts.com has been the #1 largest dealer of Santa Cruz Guitar Company and Huss & Dalton guitars for years, because Gayl stocks more guitars from those makers than any other dealer. Other guitar shops stock only a few, and take orders for instruments that require up to 9 months to build and ship. Strings has them in stock, right here in downtown Glendora.

Guitars of Brazilian rosewood are most in demand, and Gayl makes sure he has plenty to meet requests for instruments from “boutique” makers like Bourgeois (preferred by such star pickers at Ricky Skaggs, Bryan Sutton, Ron Block of Union Station and others).

Strings offers fretted instruments of all kinds from basic and high-end ukuleles to one-of-a-kind dulcimers and “Tennessee music boxes” (similar to dulcimers) beautifully hand-crafted by Glendora resident Steven Wilke.

Gayl’s previous profession was as a chemist, and he retired from that industry to follow his dream of being around beautiful instruments and surrounded by musicians.

Now he’s mixing up a different kind of chemistry – the interpersonal kind that’s all about connections.

Local guitarists had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend the day with Richard Hoover, founder of Santa Cruz Guitar Company, who presented an information-packed talk about the history of boutique guitars and his company, with interesting insider insights.

Gayl connects musicians he’s known for years, like slide blues master Stan West, Chris Burgan (whose musical life began at the knee of his dad Jerry who founded the We Five), and longtime Beach Boys drummer Bobby Figueroa.

Once a month, Gayl and Stan West put together the “Music Circle” of select, invitation-only musicians. Sometimes there are eight players, other times 15, but all must come with one song to lead they then hand off to the others for solos. Blues smashed up with bluegrass, folk with rock, country with everything – pushing players’ skills to the limit, yet most come away learning something new.

The Saturday morning concert or the monthly Music Circle aren’t the only reasons guitarists visit Strings – it’s their daily “hang.” The center of the shop is literally a living room with comfy sofas and leather wing-back chairs that are hard to resist – just plop down, grab a guitar and start playing. When you get two or three players at a time in Strings, a jam session is sure to result.

If you just so happen to stop by, you might be asked if you play an instrument or sing. An affirmative answer will get you invited to join in. That’s what happened to then-14-year-old Lainey Taylor two years ago, who dropped by with her father. The teen picked up a guitar, sang a song she wrote and on the spot was invited to perform a Saturday morning concert. She returns for her fourth visit on October 10 (check out “Concert Listings” at the bottom of the left-hand menu on www.frettedproducts.com).

More chemistry connections happen at lessons that Strings offers by many of the professionals that “hang out” at the store.

“Just imagine, learning the blues from Stan West,” marvels Gayl.

Yes, just imagine, and you’ll find it at Strings.

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Strings Music is located at 146 N. Glendora Ave., Suite 101, in the Glendora Village. Hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday 8 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, call (626) 914 4100