Music Shop Recognizes Somber Tune: Its Final Coda
By AARON EDWARDS
Published: August 23, 2012
It is a given among regulars at Colony Records that a customer need only whistle, hum, or “la, la, la” a few bars of a tune for an employee to recognize it. Through the narrow corridors and battered shelves of the cozy store in the storied Brill Building in Times Square, a knowing worker will then peruse and (more often than not) find the sheet music, vinyl record or CD the person is looking for.
Owners of the 64-year-old establishment, which is home to one of the largest sheet-music collections in the country, have confirmed that it will close its doors in the near future.
For years, Colony has represented the last remnants of a more intimate music culture.
The speed and specificity with which the task is completed could beat out some expert music shoppers who use Google or iTunes. But it is that age of search engines, file sharing and illegal music downloads that its owners say has led to the imminent downfall of Colony Records, a bastion of New York City’s intimate music store culture.
Owners of the store, on the corner of 49th Street and Broadway, confirmed Thursday that, after 64 years of business, it would shut down in the near future — possibly within the next few months — because of a dip in profits over the last few years caused by the shift in the music industry toward digital sales.
“Plenty of people come through these doors, but they buy less,” said Richard Turk, one of the owners. “Increased expenses and diminished sales have gotten us to a point where it’s not feasible to continue without a heavy struggle. We’ve had heavy struggles in the past, but the digital age has changed everything.”
Musicians, Broadway actors, reporters and other denizens of Times Square have long frequented the store, which has one of the most extensive collections of sheet music in the country. Stacks of Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber share space with contemporary pop music. (Yes, the shop has Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and “Glee.”) And just inches away from any new rock album is a timeless keepsake — a dusty Gershwin or a Sinatra.
Mr. Turk and Michael Grossbardt, another owner, said the store housed thousands of musical scores and recordings.
Its current home, the Brill Building, was a longtime home to songwriters, music producers, publishers and radio promoters. In its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s, before Colony Records occupied the ground floor, artists could record their music, find someone to promote it and get it produced for the radio — all under the same roof. After Colony moved to the building in the 1970s from its original location on 52nd Street and Broadway, artists could also go downstairs and buy sheet music to perform or audition with.
A younger generation of musicians and creative types is still drawn to the store. Teddy Tinson, 25, a fashion designer, said: “Even though I’m not an old-time New Yorker, it feels like a piece of New York will be lost. What it represents for a lot of people — their first audition or whatever it may be — it’s an emotional landmark.”
The extensive collection of music at Colony has also drawn celebrities. Colony’s owners recall once sneaking Michael Jackson through the side entrance to the basement to dodge swarming fans so that he could browse their collection and pick up unfamiliar works.
Vince Giordano, who leads the Nighthawks Orchestra and has frequented Colony since the 1970s, met the director and actor Tommy Tune there while they both looked for sheet music in the store’s aisles.
“He was searching for some obscure music and soundtracks, and I was, too,” Mr. Giordano said. “Everyone came there, from beginning novices to people really into the profession.”
Colony’s departure, visitors say, will leave an indelible bruise on a New York landscape that many say has become more ordinary as large corporations push smaller businesses out.
The tenor Robert White said Colony had been a destination for performers in a pinch. It was where he found the sheet music that RCA reproduced on the cover of his first album, a collection of turn-of-the-century ballads that he had already recorded.
“The music we had was boring-looking,” he recalled, “and Tom Shepard at RCA said, ‘We’d really like to get something that evokes the era. Don’t you have any other songs that we could copy for the cover?’ I went directly to Colony and told my problem to the man at the counter, and he said, ‘Wait a minute, I think I know just what you need.’ He gave me ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen,’ an ancient copy of it with the crease where it had been bent over for years, and he said, ‘Tell RCA to take this one.’ ”
