{"id":11615,"date":"2016-10-18T05:30:37","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T09:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=11615"},"modified":"2016-10-10T12:10:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-10T16:10:36","slug":"musicians-workshop-an-asheville-institution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/18\/musicians-workshop-an-asheville-institution\/","title":{"rendered":"Musician’s Workshop: An Asheville Institution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Musician’s Workshop is a North Asheville landmark. While other business \u2013 not to mention entire buildings \u2013 have come and gone along the Merrimon Avenue corridor in the last half century, the relatively small yet well-appointed instrument shop has persevered, a reliable, go-to resource for pro and amateur musicians alike.<\/p>\n

Moritz Music started business at 319 Merrimon Avenue in 1967. Musician’s Workshop co-owner Frank Dosier<\/b> says that John and Mary Moritz opened the shop as \u201ca retirement hobby.\u201d The family had previously owned 17 stores in Florida. The store was one of several competitive music stores in and around Asheville, and carried pianos as well as stringed instruments. Dosier says that Moritz \u201crented it out for cheap, put out a few pianos and a few guitars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dosier grew up in North Asheville. \u201cRiding home from school, I saw drums in the window,\u201d he recalls. \u201cBeing a musician, I thought, ‘That’s<\/i> a drum set!’ Jobs were hard to get. My mom took me home, put on some nicer clothes, and took me back there.\u201d The young teen had to be prodded, but he went in, and approached Moritz, asking if he needed any help. \u201cHe must have been more tired and worn out than anything, so he said yes.\u201d At the time minimum wage was $1.25 an hour. \u201cI was very demoralized to find out I was going to make $1.10.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"musicians_workshop\"<\/p>\n

Still, Dosier’s responsibilities grew quickly. \u201cI was the only one who could tune a guitar,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cIn later years, it was my job to come in every day after school and tune every guitar in the store.\u201d He characterizes those early days as \u201ca good lesson, learning about life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asheville favorite son Warren Haynes<\/strong><\/a> has fond memories of the music store, too. \u201cIt’s been there since I was a teenager,\u201d he says. He used to visit the shop nearly every day on his way home from school. Dosier says that in those days, the building was also home to a bake shop. Young kids \u2013 Dosier says Haynes was among them \u2013 would come in to the music shop with powdered sugar all over their hands. \u201cMy job,\u201d he laughs, \u201cwas to chase those guys out.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he got out of college (he studied political science), Dosier figured his music store days were over. But then Moritz asked him if he wanted the store. Frank recalls thinking, \u201cMaybe I should have studied business!\u201d He and his then-fiancee Becky talked it over. \u201cThese opportunities don’t come that often, and John promised to guide me through it. I thought, ‘he’ll be gone in 6 months, and I’ll have a music store,’\u201d He and Becky managed the store for 3 years, finally taking over as owners in 1977, renaming the store Musician’s Workshop.<\/p>\n

The business has changed a great deal in the nearly four decades since then. The couple learned how to weather economic downturns, and \u2013 like most brick-and-mortar retailers \u2013 are still figuring out how to survive in the face of online retailers, many of whom can offer competitive prices, zero sales tax, and free shipping. Though they don’t use the phrase \u201crelationship marketing,\u201d it’s a to the Dosiers’ continued success. Frank’s favorite thing about owning the store is \u201cwhen somebody comes in, someone you haven’t seen for awhile. And you remember them from back in the ’70s.\u201d Becky adds, \u201cAnd they might have the same guitar they bought from us back then.\u201d And \u201cthat’s not an uncommon thing,\u201d says Frank.<\/p>\n

Today a large portion of Musician’s Workshop’s business is sales, installation and service of sound systems for businesses and churches. The store also specializes in stringed instruments (electric and acoustic), including a remarkably wide selection of Taylor guitars.<\/p>\n

For his part, Frank Dosier admits that a lot of people think that owning or working in a music store means hanging out with rock stars and playing guitar all day. \u201cYou do some of that,\u201d he admits,\u201d but first you’ve got to tear down some cardboard boxes, put out the trash and wash the windows.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musician’s Workshop is a North Asheville landmark. While other business \u2013 not to mention entire buildings \u2013 have come and gone along the Merrimon Avenue corridor in the last half […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[237,2857],"class_list":["post-11615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","tag-asheville","tag-musicians-workshop","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11618,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11615\/revisions\/11618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}