Iconic Hub guitar store set to close
Famous clients included Dylan, Stones
A vintage Boston guitar store patronized by everyone from rock legends to aspiring music students is closing to make way for condos, ending more than three decades of local music history.
“It’s terrible, it’s like destroying a national heritage landmark,” said Mark White, a guitar professor at the Berklee College of Music and longtime customer at Bay State Vintage Guitars on Huntington Avenue. “It’s a real loss to a cultural area of the city.”
The store had found a home on Huntington Avenue — directly across from the New England Conservatory of Music and a short walk from Berklee — for 35 years, Vintage Guitars’ owner Craig Jones told the Herald.
The Conservatory was his landlord for years, he said, but a new owner is renovating the top three floors to make room for condos, meaning Jones and his shop have to go.
“I have a lot of famous clients, but I don’t usually broadcast that,” Jones said. “A good client of mine is Joe Bonamassa. The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, the guys from Steely Dan, the guys from Tom Petty’s band. There’s a whole host of them.”
White first met Jones in 1986, when he bought a 1960 Fender telecaster. He has been shopping and sending students to the store ever since.
“There have been a lot of famous people who have been in the shop,” White said. “Whether it was J. Geils, some that were less famous, the whole Boston music scene. They went in there and worked with Craig because he’s a reputable person.”
Berklee professor Bruce Bartlett, another threedecade customer who occasionally plays gigs with Jones, said, “For me it adds a lot of character to the area, it’s an old school shop, they just don’t exist anymore. It’s like an institution unto itself and Craig is aces in my book.”
Bartlett praised Jones for his knowledge of vintage instruments and for his own musical ability.
“I always send my students there for repairs,” Bartlett said. “I might send them in there for a guitar or just go there to hang out on a Saturday afternoon … and maybe spend a lot of money.”
An award-winning guitarist known for playing the blues, Jones, 64, said he has been anxious as he looks for a new home for his store, plans for retirement, and begins to hand off the business to his son, A.J.
“I have to move almost 40 years of my life,” Jones said. “This is a unique place, a pretty special place. But I realize nothing is forever.”