Iconic art shop will close after 51 years
Drumbeat Indian Arts supplied community
“I’m going to miss visiting with customers. It’s always fun to help them find what they want, and learn what they make.”
Bob Nuss
Shop owner
Bob Nuss carefully removed handcarved Zuni fetishes from a glass display case for counting. Around the corner, Reva Stewart pulled gleaming hanks of tiny beads from where they nested in divided plastic cases. She made notes of each bundle before returning them to their case.
It’s inventory day at Drumbeat Indian Arts, a longtime destination for Native people in need of supplies to create beaded jewelry and accessories, regalia for powwows or other cultural needs, or who wish to buy T-shirts, books, music or herbs.
Silver cones made from Copenhagen chewing tobacco, lids for jingle dresses, artificial sinew, leather for moccasins or drums, cleaned gourds for making rattles — if a regalia maker needed it, chances are Drumbeat would have it or could get it.
But the mood is bittersweet on this bright winter day in central Phoenix. Drumbeat Indian Arts, a popular destination for Native people seeking art and regalia supplies, or just a spot to eat lunch and visit with friends, is closing its doors in mid-January after a 51-year run.
Declining sales, rising prices and the COVID-19 pandemic led to his decision to retire and close the store, said Nuss, the store’s owner.
How Canyon Records came to share a home with a bead and regalia supply store
The iconic mid-century complex on North 16th Street, “just across from the Indian Hospital” as longtime customers said when giving directions, has been home to Drumbeat since its start in 1971. Back then, it was just the storefront and warehouse for Canyon Records, one of the oldest independent record labels in the United States.
Canyon Records’ first owners, Ray and Mary Boley, purchased the twobuilding complex about a block north of Indian School Road when they expanded the then 20-year-old record label. The Boleys are known as the proprietors of one of the first recording studios in Phoenix, Arizona Recording Productions.
“People would come in and want to trade earrings for records,” Nuss said. “And, there was no place for them to buy beads.”
Nuss, who at the time worked for Canyon, said he listened to what the beaders needed and then bought some. “It started with some size 10, then 11, then 13 cut beads,” he said.
Beads come in different sizes with the larger numbers indicating smaller size beads.
Cut beads refer to a process where the glass beads are sliced or “cut” into reflective surfaces. The resulting beads are prized for their sparkle.
“I just got a feel for what customers liked,” he said.
After beads, he added items such as trade cloth, fringe, leather, thread, needles and the all-important beeswax. Over the next decade, the tiny store grew and Nuss knocked out walls to create a larger retail space.
In 1984, Nuss bought the store and the buildings from the Boleys, who in turn sold the record company to Robert Doyle in the mid-1990s.
Despite the commercial split, the two companies have had a warm relationship, with Drumbeat continuing to sell Canyon’s cassette and CD offerings.
‘I’m going to miss visiting with customers’
Nuss, who recently celebrated reaching 82-and-a-half, said that seasoned beaders need to see the beads in person to determine what colors to purchase. For example, a rose may require three different shades of yellow.
Experienced beaders know they may have to make more than one trip to get all the colors they need.
“After 9/11, red, white and blue were in demand,” he said.
“They also have to watch for dye lots,” he said. People have come in searching for a dye lot from 10 or 20 years back for repairs.
“We let them look through our scrap pile.”
That need to “eyeball” the beads led Nuss to many powwows and other stores over the years.
“We’d drive for two days straight to, say, Oklahoma,” he said. “But then it would take me two weeks to drive back, because I made visits to the stores.”
He didn’t need vacations, he said, because traveling to powwows or Indian rodeos was like a vacation.
About four years ago, Nuss realized his business was losing money. “I’ve been trying to quit ever since then,” he said.
Rising prices for supplies and utilities, coupled with a catastrophic plunge in business during the COVID pandemic, reinforced Nuss’ decision.
So, last year he sold the complex to investors and will close Drumbeat in mid-January.
“I’m going to miss visiting with customers,” Nuss said. “It’s always fun to help them find what they want, and learn what they make.”
Today, the kids and even grandkids of his first customers come to Drumbeat looking for their own regalia supplies. Others stop by to search for a family member’s old Canyon recordings.
“I might have met a kid in third grade, and now he comes in with gray hair,” Nuss said.
One bead shop closes, another opens
But while Drumbeat prepares to sell its final hanks of beads, another shop prepares to open its doors, this time with a Navajo woman at the helm.
Stewart, who came to Drumbeat thinking she would work for a couple of months and then find another job in the health care field, stayed for 11 years, eventually becoming store manager. “I would come here to get beads and after a while, they asked me ‘Why don’t you come work with us?’”
So, Stewart made the switch from health care to retail. She said she learned about dye lots after she came to Drumbeat and now is a pro at helping customers locate old lots. Stewart also learned the ins and outs of the business from Nuss, a non-Native man who she called a huge asset to the community. “Bob knows the tribes, what they use, he knows the books,” she said. “He’s always helped our Native people.” If she or other staff need to know something new, she said, the refrain is: “Let’s go ask Bob.”
She’s also grateful to Nuss for allowing her to continue with her volunteer work and community outreach. “We sent two tons of blankets to Standing Rock,” she said, where, in 2016, a coalition of groups protested the Dakota Access Pipeline’s location near tribal lands.
Stewart was an early volunteer sounding the call about sober living home scandals in Arizona and surrounding states where Native people were lured or kidnapped to further insurance scams. She started a nonprofit, Turtle Island Women Warriors, for these outreach efforts.
Working at Drumbeat has helped her connect with other Navajos, she said, some who ended up being her relatives, and others who teased her because her Navajo differs a bit from other parts of the sprawling nation, as Stewart’s home community is in northern New Mexico.
Stewart also wanted to continue serving the community’s regalia needs, so she started her own company, Shush Diné Native Shop. The name comes from her maternal clan, the Bear Clan, and the arrow on the firm’s logo honors her dad’s warrior sign.
Where will Shush Diné Native Shop open?
“Bob knows the tribes, what they use, he knows the books. He’s always helped our Native people.”
Reva Stewart
Works at Drumbeat
Currently, she’s selling online, but is negotiating to rent a new storefront on North 16th Street a few blocks south of Indian School Road. Stewart said she plans to partner with Emerson Fry Bread to honor the Drumbeat tradition of having a food vendor on hand, so customers shopping for supplies can stop for lunch or a snack. Roxanne Wilson, co-owner with Loren Emerson of the memorable purple fry bread truck, got her professional start in the food business by setting up a fry bread stand outside Drumbeat’s front door.
Nuss said Drumbeat will soon announce a big sale that will continue until the store closes. Any remaining inventory will be donated to Native nonprofits like homeless shelters, schools and libraries. And, perhaps, some of Drumbeat’s stock will end up on shelves at Shush Diné.
After a life helping others discover magic in a bead they’ve never seen, Nuss said he plans to travel to more places he’s never seen.
Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at debra.krol@azcentral.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @debkrol.
Coverage of Indigenous issues at the intersection of climate, culture and commerce is supported by the Catena Foundation.