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Long & McQuade Celebrates 50 Years

What began as a second-floor, two-room store on top of a music studio on Carlton St. in Toronto, ON, has expanded into 27 stores, sprawled across Canada. That first store was the birth of Long and McQuade, back in 1956.

Jack Long decided to open the store after what he described as an extended engagement in Montreal in the early ’50s and when his wife bought him a How to Start a Business book. In an interview in the October/November 1987 issue of Canadian Music Trade magazine he admits that he knew “nothing about business…absolutely zero.”

About six months after the store was opened he partnered with Jack McQuade, who taught drum lessons. The store soon moved to its first storefront location at 803 Yonge St., where it remained for 16 years.

In 1963 he also founded Yorkville Sound, which began in the back room of his store. The repairman at the time was Peter Traynor, who developed the Traynor Dyna-Bass bass amp. By the end of 1963 Yorkville was making P/A columns and soon began making guitar amps. Jack recalls his first sale was a King trombone that sold for $315 and the first Bassmaster amp of Yorkville’s line.

“Success? What’s that?” Says Jack in the past issue, “I’d say one reason for my ‘success’ is that I probably wanted it more than other people. I was prepared to do things other people weren’t. For example, I’ve worked six days a week for practically my whole adult life, and most people aren’t prepared to do that. That’s not because I’m so full of self-sacrifice, but because I think that’s really important.” Today Jack still works five or six days out of the week as Chairman of the company.

This summer Long and McQuade is celebrating its 50th Anniversary with many events and specials. There will be 50th Anniversary commemorative products from about 18 various suppliers available and the whole month of June will feature the Monster 50th Anniversary Sale with specials on products and financing specials. There are many events taking place as well such as customer appreciation day, free guitar set up day, half price rental day and gift card day.

“We’ve got a lot of different promotions going on throughout the month,” says Jeff Long, VP of Marketing and Public Relations. “We’re also doing a 16-page flyer/magazine that’s going to have the history on the company and some product specials.” This will be mailed out towards the end of May. There will also be a Scratch & Win contest where they’re giving out over $2 million worth in prizes and an online sweepstakes with over $50,000 in prizes. “On June 20, we’re having a 50th Anniversary Celebration at the Phoenix Concert Theatre.” Jeff says that they’re gong to have some Iconic Canadian artists that they’ve known for a long time.

Long and McQuade has also recently opened its 27th store location in Markham, ON that was built from the ground up. “We wanted to be able to address people who are in the north end of the city,” says Jeff. “We’ve also been incorporating Education Centres into our stores and we felt that there was a good demographic up there for potential students.” The new location is 14,400 square feet and features Long and McQuade’s signature fixtures, paint colours, carpet colour and Music Education Centre. The Music Education Centres offer lessons in piano, guitar, bass, drums, woodwinds, strings and vocals and are available for all ages, levels and styles.

Jeff says that there are over 850 employees throughout all of the 27 locations, and they are significant in the business’ achievements. “We are very proud of the fact that we have so many excellent employees. Being able to develop and keep a strong staff which embraces our customer first approach has been one of the keys to our success.”

With 50 years under its belt and still growing in size, Long and McQuade’s success will not soon falter.

For more information, visit www.longandmcquade.com.

Where Are They?
Long & McQuade has 27 locations throughout Canada: Kamloops, Langley, North Vancouver, Port Coquitlam, Surrey, Vancouver-Arbutus, Vancouver-Hastings and Victoria, BC; Calgary and Edmonton, AB; Winnipeg, MB; Brampton, Burlington, Cambridge, Markham, Mississauga, North York, Oshawa, Ottawa, Scarborough, Stratford, Toronto, Toronto RCM, Waterloo and Windsor, ON.

List of suppliers who released the 50th Anniversary products
- Bach trumpet
- DW snare drum
- Epiphone guitar
- Ernie Ball bass
- Fender guitar
- Godin
- Larrivee guitar
- Levy guitar straps
- Mesa Boogie amp
- Ovation guitar
- PRS guitar
- Ritter guitar bags
- Selmer Paris Sax
- Sennheiser
- Simon and Patrick guitars
- Sonor drum set
- Sonare flute
- Taylor guitar

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