music into a successful retail business.
Name: Wakefield Music Company
Location: Main Street, Wakefield
Owner: Dennis Costa
Type of business: Music retail store
Employees: 4
Year founded: 1991
Annual revenues: WND
There is no set scale for running Wakefield Music Company.
That’s not to say that storeowner Dennis Costa lets discord take over. To hear him tell it, it’s more like a masterpiece in improvisation, a constant progression of notes that cause him to learn something new every day.
Maybe he talks musically because he is still a little uncomfortable in his retail surroundings. During a tour of his Main Street store, he pauses to admire the selection of acoustic guitars on the wall, looking at them as though he’d never seen them before. The hanging electric guitars – the store is a Fender dealer – makes a virtual rainbow in the room. Noting his collection of banjos, he says it is a rare find for a local music shop but here they are big sellers.
And then there’s the sheet music. From basic instruction for band instruments to popular music sheets, the store has what Costa calls the largest selection outside of Providence making it easy for anyone “from age five to 95” to find something they like.
“We are a unique store in a variety of ways,” Costa said.
A music performer himself, he earned a degree from the University of Southern California, Costa moved back to Rhode Island in 1984. Freelancing for a few years, he learned quickly that it’s not easy “to just be a musician” and by the end of the 1980s, he took a job at a new Axelrod Music satellite store in Wakefield.
“I had no experience in retail,” he said. “I became a manager and three years later I bought the store.”
That was more than a decade ago. Since then Costa has expanded his store, its merchandise, and its services – which include music lessons and even concerts.
“A lot of local music stores are rock-oriented,” he said. “We are kind of the opposite.”
Where Costa has found success is with young musicians. Downstairs from his vast showroom, Costa has six soundproof rooms where students can take lessons on a variety of instruments from flute, to piano, to guitar to the banjo.
“These types of things bring in a lot of people,” he said. “The other day I had this boy come in, he had to be six feet tall. He was talking to me and all of a sudden it occurred to me that he had come in for a lesson when he was six or seven. That’s been really neat.”
There is also a surge of young people in the store at the start of every school year. In recent years, Costa said, instrument rentals have been a booming business.
“September and December are our busiest months,” he said.
His customers aren’t all children. In fact, Costa spends much of his time trying to meet the needs of South County’s thriving music scene, including running a referral business that connects local musicians with paying gigs like business functions, weddings and cocktail parties. He also showcases local, national and international musicians through a concert series at the store.
It’s not always melodic. Costa admits that his least favorite part of running the business is the paperwork that goes along with it. Between balancing the books, making orders, checking invoices and tracking credit card receipts, he could easily be buried, he said, laughing.
But the job does have its perks. “I love to open the boxes and see all the toys,” Costa says of the instruments that come to the store. “That is definitely the best part.”
Looking ahead Costa said he can already see challenges in the coming years – including the construction of a giant music superstore in Warwick.
“I am a little concerned,” he said. “I have talked with other small shops and many say these stores are an asset rather than a deterrent. It will be the closest store to me and it will have a lot of the same products, but I think that we have a lot of things in place that protect us.”
The one thing Costa has that he says is hard to find at larger stores is a true love for music and a desire to share that love with others.
“Music is an art form, a means of emotional expression,” he said. “It’s therapeutic for people and the most important thing is that it is self-entertaining. Everyone can be a musician in a limited capacity.”
For the complete current issue, visit our subscription Web site, or call (401) 273-2201, ext. 227 or 234.
