Lewis Eady RIP

Personal memories of a great Auckland musical instrument retailer, John Eady

No guitarist can write a biography without memories of visiting music stores. I have visited them in most cities I have been to around the world.

At home, no trip into Auckland’s Queen Street in the 1970s was complete without going into the musical instrument stores. My favorite was Lewis Eady. They had the biggest range of everything, especially new instruments. In my teens, I would often visit on Friday evenings, after going home to shed my school uniform.

On one of those occasions, I was trying out guitars and there was a Morley Chorus pedal connected to an amp, just asking for a foot to rest on it. I knew absolutely nothing about pedals. I waited until the Ritchie Blackmore wannabe’s finished playing Smoke on the Water.

I selected an acoustic guitar with a pickup and sat on a seat, conveniently placed for people to try something new.

I was playing fingerstyle, and quickly found pieces that went well with the pedal. Several people stopped for a listen as they were wandering through the store.

I remember I had started playing Cavatina, which was released by John Williams in 1971, so it must have been 72 or 73. It was still fairly new and IMHO sounded great through the Morley pedal.

Nek Minit along comes a man in a brown suit, and I felt a chill running up my spine, thinking I was in trouble and about to be shown the door. I stopped playing and stood up, ready to go.

“Hi”, he said with a gentle soft voice, holding out his hand to shake mine. “I’m John Eady. Nice playing. Would you like a drink? A coffee or tea?”

I was stumped for words. I told him I thought I was about to get my marching orders. He said, “No way! People are staying in the shop longer, to listen to you. People like you are good for business”

So I accepted a cup of tea, which would allow me to play longer, not that I normally drank it, but I figured it would buy me more time, as I was really enjoying that pedal. It sounded almost as though I had an orchestra behind me. He stood and listened to me for a while, had a chat, and then left me to it, with my guitar, pedal, and cup of tea.

As I was putting the amp on standby, he returned and told me I was welcome anytime, and that he would give me a good discount whenever I wanted to buy anything. I didn’t buy any guitars from him. I couldn’t afford new ones, so bought my instruments privately, or from Al Kingsley Smith in Queen Street who later moved to Customs Street. Al had a big variety of used instruments, including many left behind by international artists after gigs in Auckland. More on Al in a future post. I did favor Lewis Eady for guitar strings, and I went through a lot of them. I often used La Bella Professionals for my hand-crafted1970s Takamine, which I still play today. I need to replace the pickup, but the instrument, with a replacement soundboard by Zell Tate, sounds better than it did new, and it was great then.

In the mid-70s my father started building bamboo flutes and John bought a wide range of them to sell in his store. He especially favored the pan pipes, saying they were of superior tonal quality than the top brands of factory-made instruments. He was probably Leo’s biggest customer, with many repeat orders.

Later the store moved to Remuera, and whenever I was driving nearby, I would call in, have a chat, buy some strings if he had what I wanted, and remember the good old days.

Often he would invite me to go into his special guitar room. You only went into that room by invitation. It was temperature and humidity controlled and had some amazing luthier-built guitars. I would tell him that there was no way I could afford one of them. Many had price tags in the 5-figures. He ignored my protests, saying it wasn’t about selling them, it was about sharing beautiful instruments with people who appreciated them. He would tell me all about the luthiers, the materials, and the highlights of particular instruments and have me playing them, leaving me to serve customers, who could only watch through the glass doors.

The last few times I saw John was in the oughts, and he was talking about retirement. He had dedicated his life to the historical family store. It was time to pass the legacy on to his son, John :) It wasn’t the same after that. I was calling in as much to see John Snr, as to see what instruments he had in store.

Sadly John Eady Senior ONZM (New Zealand Order of Merit for his contribution to music) passed away in 2017. Many thousands of musicians benefited from his commitment to musicians from absolute beginners to some of the best in the world. I was one of them.