Bill Landow finds calling in music

Jul. 18—GOSHEN — Bill Landow's instrument resale shop at the Old Bag Factory might very well be his crowning achievement.

"I'm going to be 75 years old in August and I have not had so much fun in my life as I have in the last 10 years," Landow, owner of Second Song Musical Resale Shop said. "Everything I've done in my life has contributed to my ability to do this."

Second Song Musical Resale Shop store celebrated its official 10-year anniversary July 1.

That day, the store opened with just 43 instruments.

"I developed skills that I hadn't had before- doing research, repairing instruments one-at-a-time, and teaching," he said.

Landow recounted how he ended up the proprietor of a store boasting almost 500 instruments ranging from cellos to guitars to drum sets, saxophones, and even keyboards and 10 years of history in Goshen.

"When I was 14 years old, I was a problem child," Landow admitted. "For a lot of reasons- I had ADD and wasn't diagnosed at that time. They didn't have a name for it. I didn't get along well with my dad. I had a hard time concentrating, and I got beat up by the bullies all the time. I was the little geeky kid that got picked on, didn't have any close friends and I was terrible in sports ... My self-esteem really sucked. I was a miserable kid and a whiny kid."

The teachers called his parents to school and informed them: Landow was not thriving. His parents sent him to a psychiatrist in Chicago, where they lived.

"I don't think he could find anything particularly wrong with me, but whatever it was, I was a miserable child," he recalled. "I'd push myself on people because I wanted to be accepted and I felt rejected."

One day, his mom made a suggestion that changed the course of Landow's life.

"Billy, if you learned to play guitar, do you think they'd invite you to parties?" he recalled his mom's question. "I said, 'I don't know, Mom.' I said, 'But if you want to get me a guitar, I'd check it out and see what I could do.' You know?"

Landow experienced his sister learning to play the piano and had one condition for his parent: that they did not make him practice.

On Christmas that year, he got a six-string silver tone, recalling it was the bottom-of-the-line guitar from the Sears catalog.

"It came with a piece of yarn for a neck strap, a little plastic pick, a little booklet on how to make cords and stuff, and a Gene Autry record." The guitar still hangs in the shop.

His mom had a friend who was also planning to learn guitar, at the Old Town School of Folk Music, a nonprofit music school in Chicago. She volunteered to teach Landow the lessons she learned.

"It would force her to practice because she had to show somebody what she was doing," Landow explained.

After about eight months, he "graduated" from her lessons.

"I found solace in playing the guitar," he said. "I let music let my emotions out. I've always been an emotional guy and music helped me channel that. Plus I got good enough as a player that I started teaching other kids in school and developed some friendships through being a teacher. I even got a girlfriend."

Now he plays about 12 string instruments.

"Back in Chicago, I decided that I wanted to make a career out of being a recording engineer," he said.

He worked his way up to chief engineer at a major recording studio and eventually opened his own which remained open for 17 years.

"Because I was a recording engineer and because I got along well with people — I don't know when that happened but I attribute it to the music — I got hired as a salesperson for a German magnetic tape manufacturer and I had to call on recording studios in 13 states."

And then Elvis Presley died. Suddenly there was a need for millions of audio cassettes of Elvis Presley.

"All the other suppliers ran out of tape," he said. "They bought from me that year a million dollars worth of tape and I became the star of my entire company."

He built his own recording studio during that time, and when profits stopped coming in from sales goals, he ran the recording studio full-time. He would even write songs and sometimes play on them as a featured artist.

"Whenever I found cheap unusual instruments at garage sales or whatever I would collect them, but I never was in the business of dealing as a music dealer," he explained.

Things for Landow just seemed to fall into place.

"When they (owners of the Old Bag Factory) asked me to put a music store in, used instruments just made sense," he said. "I would go to garage sales and ask if people had any instruments hiding in their basements they'd like to get rid of, because people at garage sales they don't normally think of the instruments that they haven't seen in years and they belonged to their kids or whatever. I found out that you could make money on it."

Second Song Musical Resale Shop sells and accepts donations of old band, orchestra and folk instruments, and will purchase instruments for restoration under certain circumstances. The shop also has a repair service of all musical instruments. Some of the repair techs who contract with him are former Conn Selmer employees.

"My woodwind guy is 80 years old or going on 80, and I don't have a backup for him," he admitted. "I've got a heck of an inventory. Normally, I've only got a few pieces, but if something happens to him I need a supply while I find someone else who can do it. I keep him busy."

Instruments that can't be repaired economically, can be resold as wall hangers. Landow, too, has taught himself to repair some instruments.

His first guitar, in 1961, hangs on the wall of the shop. When he bought a Martin, he didn't need that one anymore so he gave it to his sister, who gave it to her son, who left it in the rain.

"You should have seen it," he said. "My sister gave it back to me and she said, 'I didn't have the heart to throw it in the dumpster.'"

For years, it hung, broken, and destroyed on the wall until Landow decided to learn to repair it in 2019. He bought another guitar at a resale shop for $8 and learned how to repair the instrument himself.

"I played the snot out of that thing, seriously," he said.

Landow also tries to pay forward the lessons he received all those years ago, teaching homeschooled children guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle at no cost.

"I've been paying it forward since I was 22 years old," he said. "I've been teaching kids for free, but now I'm trying to teach kids who will teach kids. I'm showing them how to do it and I say, 'Now you go find somebody to teach to do this, too,' that's how you'll pay me back.'"

Second Song Musical Resale Shop is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays or by appointment.

Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2065.