But there’s one establishment that’s still hitting the high notes as a local family-owned-and-operated shop: Rossi Music, located at 4901 W. 95th St. And the maestro conducting this small miracle of a symphony amidst the competing din of its chain store competitors is Lary Sidlow, the 53-year-old owner who serendipitously took the reins from the shop’s founder, Sam Rossi, back in 1987.
Right Place at the Right Time
Sam launched Rossi Music in 1958 in its former location, just a few doors down on the next block eastward. He created a haven for music lovers young and old who yearned for a one-stop-shop where students could receive personal instruction from experienced music teachers as well as good deals on reputable and fairly priced instruments, gear, accessories, and sheet music.
But when Sam fell ill in the late 1980s and his sons took over, the fate of everyone’s favorite neighborhood music store was uncertain. Saving it from extinction was Sidlow, who at the time was a young musician teaching guitar lessons at Judy’s Music in the Ford City Mall.
“It was pure luck,” said Sidlow. “One of my reps came into Judy’s and told me I’d soon be doing better because the competition was going out of business. The Rossi family was going to close the store, but I decided to go down there and see what was up. I said, ‘how about selling me your inventory and leasing me your space so I can keep the business going?’”
To Sidlow’s shock, the Rossi family agreed, and Sidlow and his friend/business partner Mike Luizzo became co-owners (until Mike left the business in 2004).
Keeping the Tradition Going
But taking over where Sam and company left off didn’t mean a wholesale reinvention of what Sidlow shrewdly realized was a successful formula. The transition was relatively seamless, and while he’s expanded his showcased merchandise and roster of music teachers over the years, very little has changed at Rossi Music over the last 24 years. Sidlow moved his establishment to a newer location just a few doors down back in 2007, but even the square footage remained the same.
“I’ve carried on the same traditions that Sam established. As far as anyone knows, Sam’s still in the back smoking his cigars like he always was,” said Sidlow, an Oak Forest resident who’s married to Frann, a producer/director for the Orland Park District theater program, and has two children—Julianna, 23, and Louis, 12.
What sets Rossi apart from the crowd—and keeps several generations of loyal patrons coming back—is its streamlined product offerings and prompt, personalized level of service.
“You can buy an instrument online, but you can’t get the expertise and the personal touch that you get here,” Sidlow said. “Music is still a very personal thing. It’s not like selling cars or generic goods. Musicians still want to be talked to. Beginners need help and encouragement and advice with a product they may know nothing about.”
Personal Touch
Sidlow has carefully compartmentalized his showroom into inter-related segments, so that if you’re shopping for a guitar, the amps are conveniently adjacent, or if you’re looking for drum heads, sticks are only a few feet away.
“Easily 50-percent of my floor space is devoted to sheet music. Try to find a store today that handles any form of sheet music. I get customers as far north as Evanston and as far west as Geneva to purchase it here,” he said.
You won’t find some instrument makes at Rossi—Fender and Gibson, for example—because Sidlow would have to commit to being a franchisee of those products and meet impossible sales quotas. But he does carry a respectable assortment of quality brands, including Washburn Guitars (located in Mundelein) and Percussion Plus (shipped from downstate Illinois).
“I pride myself in dealing with local companies, because it’s easier to get stock inventory. Plus, I know all of these people by name—the suppliers and distributors. I don’t have to carry too much product like a warehouse with heavy inventory. I can go lean and mean as an operation. Whatever’s in their catalogs, I can get within 40 minutes or so. It’s what’s helping to keep me going during this economic downturn—I can stock as I go.”
One product he may want to stock more of is the ukulele, which is the most requested instrument in his store lately.
Carving a Niche
Rossi continues to chug along difficult financial times for most businesses because Sidlow has carved out a specialized niche in a crowded marketplace. He can also undercut the other guys by charging only $16 for a half-hour one-on-one music lesson while some of his big name competitors are demanding $30.
The music instructors, in fact, are Rossi’s real secret weapons: four teach guitar, two teach drums, two teach wind and brass band instruments, and one teaches piano. A few have been on Sidlow’s staff for years, including expert percussion teacher John Poindexter, who’s heading into his third decade with Rossi Music. (One of the shop’s former bass teachers, in fact, was Steve “Fuzz” Kmac, formerly with the heavy metal band Disturbed.)
Considering that about 300 different students walk through Rossi Music’s doors every week for private tutelage, Sidlow and crew must be doing something right.
While Sidlow no longer trains pupils, he still gigs and fills in on guitar in his spare time. Case in point: He’ll be in the orchestra for a Broadway review at Trinity Christian College the last weekend in January and performing with a band called The Bucks on February 12 at Bailey’s in Tinley Park. Recently, he strummed the strings as one of the musicians in the popular musical Rent at the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, Ind.
Sidlow can’t stray too far from his Oak Lawn headquarters, however, being that he’s the proverbial chief, cook and bottlewasher at Rossi most days of the week.
“People don’t realize that I’m truly a one-man operation, which includes being the janitor. If we run out of toilet paper, I have to close my doors and run to Walgreen’s to get some. But being your own boss also has its benefits. It’s easier to control the situation and navigate as a small, nimble operation through these times,” he said.
As for opening a second Rossi location, Sidlow said the only way he’d consider it is “if I could clone myself.”
