HOW THE VIRUS UPENDED ONE COUPLE’S ENTIRE LIVELIHOOD

when Nashville’s mayor imposed a “safer at home” order that closed nonessential businesses, the fate of perhaps the city’s most beloved indie record store seemed sealed. Like many stores around the nation, Grimey’s New & Preloved Music —

named it one of the country’s 10 best records stores in 2018 — had already been struggling with how to handle the pandemic, asking customers to wash their hands the second they set foot in the store, and watching sales dip. The order seemed like a death knell. “I’ve laid off part-time staff, and we’re helping our full-timers apply for unemployment,” co-owner Doyle Davis says. “I hope we can come back on the other side of this.”

The future of Grimey’s looked bleak, much like other stores’ across the nation; the streaming age was tough for record stores even before the pandemic closed their doors. But within 24 hours of the mayor’s order, Davis got a lifeline out of nowhere.

Taylor Swift, who lives part time in Nashville, contacted Davis through her publicist and offered help, donating money to the store’s full-time staff and providing enough funds to cover three months of the store’s health-insurance costs.

“I didn’t even know we were on her radar, but she really stepped up to help after the recent tornadoes that struck Nashville and middle Tennessee, and now she’s trying to help a beloved small business in her city,” Davis says. “It’s a huge deal to us, and now I have some peace of mind as we apply for [Small Business Administration] loans to pay rent, vendors, and other expenses. This assistance gives us a real shot at coming back on the other side of this.” KORY GROW

Chris Cornell likes to think of the music merchandise business as pretty much a safe bet. The industry made $3.5 billion in 2018, according to a report from the trade group Licensing International. Even in down years, Cornell’s company, Manhead Merch — which sells merch for artists such as Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, and Alanis Morissette — usually doesn’t have to worry all that much. “When the economy’s in the shitter, people still go to concerts, and they still buy merchandise,” Cornell says. “I was thinking this is a bulletproof business.”

It wasn’t supposed to be a down year; Manhead was expecting this coming tour season to be its busiest in years. But now, thanks to the pandemic, Manhead’s touring clients have had to push back their shows, some to 2021 and beyond. While the New Yorkbased company is not in dire straits — “We’ve saved up for a rainy day,” says Cornell — this is still troublesome news for its employees. “We have 22 people between three different offices working on creative, like art,” Cornell says. “We’re working with some really good success and maybe some not so good.” Other merch companies have it even worse; BandMerch, which has handled merchandise for Alison Krauss, Steven Tyler, and the Misfits, has already furloughed a majority of its workforce until further notice.

Seventy percent of Manhead’s revenue comes from concerts; that revenue is gone for the foreseeable future. The remaining 30 percent is divided between retail and e-commerce, but with retail shops also closed, online shopping is all that’s left. Manhead has put much of its focus around e-commerce, and sales online have gone up considerably, but not enough to make up for all the canceled and postponed concerts.

“We’ve seen a 30 percent increase in our baseline e-commerce sales, and that’s without promotions or doing anything unusual,” Cornell says. “We received our [federal Paycheck Protection Program] funding, so we’re hopefully OK for the year and won’t have to do layoffs. The incremental gains in e-commerce have been good, but it’s definitely not going to save 2020. The loss of touring is devastating.” ETHAN MILLMAN

To visit Manhead’s web store, go to manheadmerch.com