The Music Shoppe, a family-owned instrument sales and service center headquartered in Normal, is celebrating its 65th anniversary—a rare achievement among family businesses.
For the current and previous owners, what began as a summer job became a lifelong commitment to the store. Randy Wood and Jonathon Breen both started working at the shop as teenagers, cleaning instruments and cases, before eventually taking ownership of the Music Shoppe.
The Music Shoppe has locations in Normal, Champaign and Springfield. In addition to selling and servicing instruments in the shops, six road reps visit over 300 schools to provide services to band, orchestra, choir and general music programs.
“We've been thrilled to be able to support the musical community of Central Illinois. We are not about global domination; we focus just on the central part of Illinois. We are not interested in selling outside the area. And we have also been very blessed that central Illinois has embraced us.” said Breen, the Music Shoppe's current owner and CEO.
A family affair
The Music Shoppe was founded in 1961 by Tom Wood when he bought Noonan’s Music Co. Tom’s son, Randy Wood, came into the picture in 1980.
“I had no intentions of coming with the business, but my dad looked at me and said, 'What are you going to do with yourself?' I said, ‘Play the drums,' and he just laughed,’” Wood said in an interview with WGLT.
He agreed to work for the shop for a summer, “and ended up being there 46 years,” he said.
Randy and his dad, Tom, worked together 13 or 14 years before Tom fully retired. Randy gained a partner in 1980, Terry Houchin. Together, they opened satellite Music Shoppes in two separate locations: one in Champaign in 1989 and the second in Springfield in 2016.
As a “last resort" while looking to retire, Randy asked his nephew, Breen, to consider taking over. Breen was also familiar with the Music Shoppe. Randy’s his uncle, and he, too, took a summer gig cleaning instrument.
“I needed money for a high school dance, I was going to go on a date and take a girl to a dance, and I needed money for dinner and for the corsage," said Breen.
Talks began when Breen was in California working for instrument giant Yamaha. Breen has just recently received a promotion to National Director of Sales for the Band and Orchestra. He worked at Yamaha for a total of 18 years before taking ownership of the Music Shoppe in September 2018. Randy Wood officially retired a year later.
“Much of the success is due to Randy, Terry, Joy, Monica and my grandparents and all the other employees that we had over the years, some of them been here for decades, and we are fortunate that we had a great place to be,” Breen said.
Marking a milestone
To mark the milestone, the Music Shoppe unveiled a 65th anniversary logo earlier this year at the Illinois Music Educators Conference.
The Music Shoppe’s new logo is full of the shop’s history and success, uplifting the original Music Shoppe Logo, made in 1980. On the logo is a drum, in honor of Randy Wood, Tom Wood, and Terry Houchin, a classically trained percussionist of Illinois Wesleyan University.
The Music Shoppe recently took over Carl's Pro Band's school accounts and repairs after that family business in Bloomington closed last year.
"When it became time for Carl to retire and for them to figure out how to exit that business, we were fortunate that they opened the door to us." Breen says.
"Two of their four employees are working for us now. The other two employees there joined our team, and so it was very seamless." Breen adds on.
The Music Shoppe has survived ups and downs in a tough industry, managing to survive and thrive. Expansion after expansion has led to a labyrinthine configuration through their current location in Normal. Having outgrown its capacity, the team is in search of a stand alone building.
Randy Wood said strong K-12 school band and orchestra programs in the region, plus collegiate programs at Illinois Wesleyan and Illinois State are a big part of what's kept their business strong. That's been a big part of the Music Shoppe's story.
Wood and Breen recall a marathon Unit 5 School Board meeting in 2023, when the community showed strong objections to making music program cuts. Wood said was another example of how strong music programs and strong music businesses are a mutual benefit to the community.
For Breen, watching students progress through music education is what keeps him motivated—even if, like him, they don't pursue it professionally.
"It's two things," Breen said. "One is helping the students step up—kids who've been renting and playing and trying instruments for a couple years—then they're ready to buy that next-level instrument that's going to be their musical voice, maybe for the rest of their lives
"But the best part is when you're out working with the 10 and 11-year-olds who have never picked up an instrument before. They put that instrument to their face for the first time and make that first, awful, squeaky, squawky sound. And their eyes pop, but they're so excited. ...That is the rewarding piece. That's the cream."
