Not long after I started learning to play music in the mid 50s my Dad started stocking various string sets and parts. My bedroom closet was stuffed with string sets, bars, tuners, capos and picks. Guitar, banjo, mandolin and steel guitar cases were in the corners and under my bed. Other cases filled the sun parlor area of our home. Area musicians would stop by our house regularly and buy their supplies. Around 1958 my Dad built a small music store above his work shop across the road from our house between Lincoln and Ellendale, DE. Within a year he had expanded to carrying various string instruments and drum sets. A tradition of store jam sessions started and many area players would stop by often. In the early 60s my dad decided to semi-retire and started "Wilson's Music Store" at 8 south Walnut Street in Milford, DE. Back then he and I would make regular trips to Baltimore and Philly to visit all of the pawn shops. It was a great era to find all of the classic stringed instruments. Their walls were filled to the brim with old Gibsons, Fenders, Martins, Guilds and Gretschs. Many of them made it to our store in Milford. Along with fine used instruments we carried some inexpensive new instruments, drums, drum sticks, reeds for horns, mics and various amps. Over the next year or so we became franchised dealers for Fender and Epiphone (USA). Then we added C.F. Martin, Rickenbacker, Vox & Hofner plus additional amp lines like Ampeg, Standel and Magnatone. By the late 60s we stocked steel guitar brands like Dobro, Emmons & Sho-Bud. We had various brands of drums including Rogers & Slingerland. The 60s were a great time for garage bands and the music business boomed. By 1965 we opened a 2nd store on Lockerman Street in Dover. It did amazingly well. Jam sessions had continued on at both stores. Both stores were also popular meeting places for players of all types. We later tried third and fourth locations in Laurel, DE and Cambridge, MD but it proved too much. Though we carried parts for horns and often had used ones in inventory, our focus was always on stringed instruments and a few portable keyboards. None of our family members played horns and we believed in selling and servicing what we knew very well.
In 1969 my father had a stroke that incapacitated him. After 6 months of trying to run both locations with my father bed ridden I closed the Dover location and moved everything to our Milford location. He went through several periods of improvement and then his health would crash again. I continued to play in bands and did some work in NYC in 73-74. I also had a regular teaching schedule which I maintained. We continued on with the family business but by the mid 70s the music retail business we were accustomed to had changed somewhat. I was no longer very happy with the quality of many of the brands we had carried. They had redesigned many items and cheapened both the material quality and workmanship. I had acquired the Gibson line in the early 70s and both it and Fender were not up to par. I looked for alternatives and was quite pleased with other brands like Guild and a new company called Ibanez. We also carried used Hammond organs, Moog and Arp synthesizers, M.S.A. pedal steels, various electric pianos and did more with P.A. systems and good used instruments again. By the late 70s I was tired of the retail music business and converted much of our Milford store into a recording studio, keeping the front as a small store, repair shop and teaching area. That would continue on in that manner until the mid 80s. At the studio we did jingles, records and demos nearly everyday.
Around 1985 I sold the Wilson's Music-Electric Possum Land building at 8 South Walnut Street and put a small repair shop in my home at 506 S.E. Front St., mainly to service my regular customers' instruments and my own. I continued to trade in stringed instruments on the side but I no longer had a walk in trade store front or carried a large inventory.
In 1989 I decided to focus a bit more regularly on repairs and made it known to the stores and friends. It was to be a supplemental business for my performing but I wound up doing 1500 or more a year in the next few years. I would also start doing a regular Tuesday and Thursday repair shop day at B&B in Camden for the next 10 years.
Eventually we built a larger shop at my home. Once again I could display more used and new instruments. It all came full circle. I still perform weekly and do repairs daily, providing the service for many of the stores in the Delmarva area as well. I maintain a rather loyal client base for my repair work. Every week I deal in instruments and I also sell them now and then on E-Bay under Milford_Guitar_Man. In addition to that I am a dealer for various lines like Fishmen, Folkcraft, Allparts, WD, Lark In the Morning, Ratliff mandolins and many other parts companies.

Herb Lane and I jamming in Wilson's Music Store in Milford around 1962-63. My Dad is sitting behind the counter. Herb was a great fellow and stopped by our store often. We became good friends and he accompanied my banjo playing with his guitar or bass at various shows over the next few years. He also played guitar in our radio show band. In this shot Herb is playing an old Gretsch Rancher flattop, a late 50s model which belonged to my Dad, and I am playing my early 60s Earl Scruggs Vega 5 string banjo.