Dealer Spotlight
This month:
Ivor Mairants Musicentre
www.ivormairants.co.uk
London’s West End features many illustrious music stores, each with its own unique and fascinating story. Ivor Mairants Musicentre in Rathbone Place, which is just off Oxford Street, was established in 1958. At the time it was notable by being one of the UK’s first specialist guitar stores. A top session guitarist himself throughout the 1940s and 50s, Ivor Mairants devoted his life to the guitar and his passion was echoed by the vast numbers of guitarists that flowed through his store, which quickly became known as an important hang out for guitarists. The shop was a hub were guitarists would pick up gigs, network with one another and generally form what became a hard-core of the capital’s top professional players. Some notable guitarists including John McLaughlin even worked part time in Ivor Mairants’ shop and as current store manager Mak Ogawa explains, some illustrious names still pass through the front door. “We still get a few famous faces popping in occasionally. Paul McCartney is probably the most notable we’ve seen recently. It’s really cool to get a legend coming in just to hang out and check out what’s new. It’s nice to chat to them about what they did back in the 60s, sometimes they tell you great stories about when they used to come to London as kids, just to hang out in guitar stores and drool over the instruments!” According the Mak, Ivor Mairants’ strong acoustic roots
are still an important part of the shop’s heritage. “It is what we known for. There are periods when jazz guitars are more popular but we have a great selection of classical guitars, acoustic guitars and of course electrics as well. Acoustics are probably our number one, but the jazz thing is also very specialized and not many people do it to the level that we do it.” PM
pickup425
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