Closing time Closing time (December 24, 2004)

Gil Draper steps down after 38 years of running his landmark music store

by Robyn Israel

If Gil Draper ever writes a book, it will be filled with delicious tidbits about his personal (three wives) and professional lives. The photographs inside his office are a who's who of famous musicians: Jerry Garcia, Alice Cooper, Stan Lee Jordan, Neal Schon, Michael Hedges and Bill Atkinson.

"He was such a gentle guy," Draper said, recalling the time Garcia bought one of his vintage guitars (a black Gibson Les Paul) for $1,000.

"I felt guilty; I had paid $300 for it," Draper recalled. "I said, 'It's too much.' So Jerry said, 'I'll take a little amplifier, too.'"

When Garcia passed away, the guitar was valued at $50,000. It's the kind of story one is likely to hear about Draper's Music Center. The California Avenue shop may not be as successful as Guitar Center, but it has served the musicians of Palo Alto for 38 years, outlasting such local competitors as Swain's House of Music and Dana Morgan.

"I think the reason Draper's has been successful is because Gil is a musician (saxophonist and composer), his staff are musicians, and musicians have always felt comfortable going in there," said Jim Nadel, the founder and director of the Stanford Jazz Workshop, who taught saxophone at Draper's for over 25 years.

"Plus there was always an understanding of pop music and pop music culture that permeated the atmosphere of the store. And Gil is affable and enthusiastic and good-natured. People like to drop in to chat with him -- these are all reasons why he's still there and the others are gone."

News of Draper's imminent closing saddened many local musicians, including ("Fast") Eddie Warner, who has fond memories of buying equipment there.

"Gil was tuned into the scene, and he helped everyone else get in tune," said Warner, who first frequented the store as a 15-year-old in the late '60s. "He was pro-people taking instruments and playing music -- every kind of music."

After Swain's closed in 1995, Draper felt compelled to keep going, so that Palo Alto would still have a full-service music store. But now Draper, 75, feels it is time to move on and do something else with the rest of his life.

"It's too difficult for me to run the store, to be here everyday. It doesn't leave me enough time to do other things," he said. "I've really become more interested in photography. I'd like to learn to play guitar -- I have a beautiful guitar at home and I don't play it. And I feel bad, because I can't take my two Jack Russell terriers (Skipper and Calli Draper) to the dog park. Plus I want to do some writing."

This won't be Draper's first career change. Before he opened his music store in 1966, he worked as a salesman, selling chemicals for National Chemsearch.

"I was making lots of money. We had cars. My wife was in the beauty parlor once a week. But I wasn't happy with my life," Draper recalled. "It was a time for reevaluation in the '60s.

"I went to a marvelous man who changed my life: Dr. Bernard Light, a psychologist. With his help, I found out what I really like. And what I really like isn't money -- it's music. He asked me, 'Why not be a musician? I said truthfully, 'I don't have the talent to be a great musician.' He then answered, 'What's wrong with being a mediocre musician and enjoying it?'"

Draper took Light's advice. He quit his job and started playing saxophone in a band, earning a steady gig at the Lamplighter in Sunnyvale.

"I went from making $70,000 to making $15 a week, thanks to the three clarinet students I had," Draper recalled. "We had two daughters and a son on the way. We stopped everything. We ate cream of wheat, hot dogs and hamburgers for a year."

After growing tired of performing, Draper took a job managing Hart's Music Store (run by Mickey Hart's father, Leonard) in San Carlos. Six months later, with a $3,000 loan from the First National Bank of San Jose and some IBM stock, Draper opened Draper's Music Center on California Avenue. His right-hand man was David Jenkins, who left Hart's to help run Draper's and teach guitar. Draper taught saxophone.

Through the years, Draper's personal life evolved, as well. After divorcing his first wife, Terry ("my breeding wife"), Draper married Waltraud ("Wally") Scott, a free-spirited German woman who ran a coffee shop in Whiskey Gulch.

"I owe her a lot. She got me out of Palo Alto. I'm from Brooklyn, so I'm used to sidewalks and streets. But because of her, I moved to old La Honda Road, to a spot on three acres. She loved horses. She taught my youngest daughter, Ruth, how to ride. She was very good for the family.

"But she was wacko! When we were married, she'd go out into the pasture and wait for the space man to take her for a ride. And one day, I came home from work and found a horse in the living room!"

Draper's third wife, yoga teacher Elise Miller, was the "gift in my life when I was 50." But after five years, that marriage ended. Draper is now single again.

In running his business, Draper has always relied on his young staff, instilling in them the importance of Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements," a code of ethics followed by the Toltec Indians of southern Mexico.

"Long before I read Ruiz, I told my staff, 'Be impeccable with your word. Don't even make a statement unless it's 100 percent true," Draper said. "All we have is our credibility. The people of Palo Alto understand that and have respected that."

Draper reminisced about the time a prospective partner wanted to go into business with him. He knew it was an ill-fated match when the person articulated his ambition.

"I want to make a million dollars," he told Draper.

Draper realized immediately they would be incompatible as business partners.

"People who want to make a million dollars are going to do a lot of things I wouldn't do," Draper said. "And making money was never my goal. Having a good, honest business was."

Besides running an honest business, Draper said his other goal was to be part of the community. According to Nadel, he has succeeded.

"He's always been a great friend to music in the community," Nadel said. "He always loaned us equipment whenever we needed it. His generosity was particularly important in the early years of the Stanford Jazz Workshop, when we were on a shoestring budget."

One of Draper's proudest achievements was partnering with Larry Harper of Good Tidings to help establish a music room at Menlo Oaks School. He donated the instruments, and in his honor the school named it the Gil Draper Music Room.

When Draper first started thinking about retiring, he had a dream he shared with former Stanford band director Art Barnes.

"We were going to retire at the same time and have a big party at Frost Amphitheatre, invite all the bands to play. Wouldn't that have been something? But he retired first."

Though plans are in motion to close the store in January, once the inventory is down, Draper still hopes that a buyer will come forward, and is "80 percent" sure the store will continue.

"I have a responsibility to these people (five staff, seven teachers)," Draper said. "So I'm doing my very best to find someone who can take over the store and keep the atmosphere going."

Despite the store's retro charm, Draper acknowledged that he did not change with the times, eschewing new technology in favor of traditional business practices.

"I had a Web site, but it didn't sing -- it was dull, so I dumped it," Draper said. "But I should have one, I should be selling instruments that way," he said, adding that new owners will have to inject new energy into the store, if it is to survive.

"I think people today don't need a lot of service. They go on the Internet, they study the various instruments, they do research, and they know what they want. This type of store, to survive, needs more than walk-in trade."

To read more about the impact of Draper's closing on local musicians, please visit www.PaloAltoOnline.com and click on "sidebar."

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