Mike Wolanin | The Republic Tom Pickett recounts his life playing and selling musical instruments at Tom Pickett’s Music Center in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. Tom Pickett has owned and operated his business in Columbus for 65 years. He recently sold his business to Columbus resident Greg Griffin. The name of the business won’t change and Pickett will keep working at the store.
Let’s get one thing straight right at the top: Musician Tom Pickett can sincerely strum one’s heartstrings as superbly as he can strum any ukulele in any performance.
He did that recently even when discussing a huge, local, cultural business deal: the selling of the 65-year-old iconic Tom Pickett’s Music Center last week to longtime customer, friend and Greensburg resident Greg Griffin.
“He has the right heart,” Pickett said, sitting near the mandolins and guitars in the store on National Road in Columbus.
And there’s more. Pickett described the deal as, well, nothing less than divine. Actually, he did so after a few classic Pickett wisecracks.
“Well, first of all, I’m 193 — I mean 93 years old,” he said, grinning and chuckling at himself.
Later, he grew serious, and that soft, raspy voice summarized the selling process that began rather informally in September.
“This whole thing was prepared by God,” Pickett said. “Every little step. Every little thing.”
Griffin is a performing singer and guitarist who recently sold his Columbus-based South Central Roofing Inc., but will continue some roofing work. He had been asking Pickett if he had an “exit strategy” for several years — basically, every so often as he visited the store. Pickett finally called Griffin in the fall to say that it was time.
“I just felt that God was pushing me in this direction,” said Griffin, who bought his first guitar as a teen at Pickett’s store that was then on 25th Street.
Griffin and his newly named manager and music partner Mike Anderson were adamant about keeping the business name, and keeping Pickett himself. Plus, right this second, they are double-checking details of an expansion project set to begin Monday to add three rooms for additional music lessons — and video screens so parents and others can watch in a newly constructed waiting area at the back of the store.
Griffin also plans to add more instrumental variety, such as drums, to the store inventory. Plus, he’ll be adding consulting on acoustics and sound for entities such as churches and more in the near future.
School instrument rentals will continue.
“We want to be careful to continue with all that Tom has done here,” Griffin said. “I know that I have a lot to learn from him.”
Pickett himself always has acknowledged that he learned humility early on. His first music place on Washington Street doubled as his apartment with a roll-away bed. Before he ever sold a single instrument, he first booked music lessons by going door-to-door on Coovert Street and talking to parents about their children trying guitar lessons.
But he cannot fathom that he has been doing this as long as he has.
“It seems like maybe a couple months,” he said, breaking into a smile. “I have absolutely no sense of that longevity.”
Or even a sense of a single day’s longevity. He still awakens at 5 a.m. and leaves for the store at 6 a.m. He normally comes home maybe by 7 p.m. Griffin hopes Pickett can ease that schedule soon.
“My wife (Barbara) now will get me see me now more than 90 minutes a day,” Pickett said.
Years ago, Pickett sold a sound system to a then-teen John Mellencamp, who boasted to Pickett about all the great things he would do one day.
“I thought, ‘I’ve heard that song before,’ ” Pickett said, chuckling at his skepticism.
He has sold guitars to other locals who have become well known, including globally touring folk performer Tim Grimm. He also gave guitar lessons to a very young Glen Duncan, who later became a fiddling member of the band for Reba McEntire and other country stars.
Plus, the last time Columbus native Nick Niespodziani was in town away from a national tour with soft rock’s Yacht Rock Revue, he bought what he calls “my favorite ukulele” at Pickett’s.
“Tom Pickett is a pillar of the Columbus music community,” Niespodziani said, also calling him “a helluva picker.”
“I love that guy,” Niespodziani said.
The former owner has no idea how much longer he will work. Heck, he never mapped out 65 years of this — since March 1959, when Columbus already had four other music stores.
“I want to continue for as long as it’s fun,” Pickett said.
He’d like to begin teaching the Dobro, an American resonator guitar, soon, to move into a different rhythm of life. He’s grateful that his business survived the pandemic, though he was closed for a couple months. He said he could not complain.
”We weren’t starving,” he said matter-of-factly. “We had gasoline. And we ate. So we hung in there.”
Just like Pickett’s Music Center has done for 65 years.
