Paul Wilson is a man who doesn’t mind playing hard to get.

His Urbandale guitar shop can be difficult to find on the first try. A nearby barber shop draws the first look; the second might catch Wilson’s Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe, located just south of Douglas Avenue on 70th Street.

Good thing that Wilson has been around the Greater Des Moines music scene long enough that people who know him also know how to find him. Over the years, more than 22,000 aspiring guitar players and at least a handful of professional musicians have found him just fine.

For the others, especially folks looking to buy a guitar, Wilson is content with the thought that his store might be the last stop on their search. Strong economy or weak, it makes little difference.

Wilson has been in the music business since 1963, when the owner of what would have been called a “hi-fi” shop in that day learned that he could play guitar and should give lessons in addition to selling stereo equipment.

Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe opened in 1977, offering lessons and selling guitars. Wilson believes that when people find the store, they have already visited every other guitar shop in town, many of which focus on the name brands of Gibson, Fender and Martin that Wilson rarely carries, unless they are on consignment.

However, he also tours the globe looking for select hardwoods for classical guitars and to visit guitar factories and individual guitar builders. On a trip to Hawaii, he selected two handmade ukeleles for a customer in Greater Des Moines who agreed to pay $5,000 for each one, based on Wilson’s recommendation.

Teaching and performing

Teaching is the focus at Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe, where lessons account for about 30 percent of revenues.

However, playing has been as much a part of Wilson’s life as teaching – he is a member of the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He has played gigs around the globe and he has worked as a studio musician for jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis and rock ‘n’roll icon Chuck Berry at Chess Studios in Chicago.

“I’ve always been on the edge of fame,” he said.

Wilson’s approach to business might be considered unorthodox by some, but it is a style that suits him just fine and it sits well with the other guitar masters who teach at his store.

In a search for guitars or guitar instruction, many a newcomer to Greater Des Moines will be directed to Wilson’s store. He is a man who listens for good tone in guitars that run the gamut from inexpensive Chinese acoustics to hard-to-find classical guitars with price tags that start in the four figures.

And he draws a group of instructors who are handpicked, so to speak, and who specialize in everything from heavy metal to jazz. Wilson’s specialty these days is classical music and the guitars used to play it.

Other guitar shops might offer more variety and fancier digs and teach more students, but few will turn down a determined buyer. Wilson has and will.

He also isn’t the first music shop owner to discover that lessons are an important part of establishing long-term customers.

Both Rieman Music Inc. and Uptempo Music emphasize rentals of all types of instruments to students who receive instruction in their stores and area schools.

Lesson rates at most of the music shops run about $20 for a half-hour lesson, and sometimes a couple of lessons are free with the purchase of an instrument.

Those rates, along with the rental of instruction rooms, can help the bottom line.

Still, local store owners interviewed for this article said they are holding their own in terms of sales.

“We’re doing what we’ve always done – we’re buying right and selling right. We’re constantly changing and improving,” said Dave Kouri, owner of Uptempo Music in the Beaverdale neighborhood.

Culture change might trump the economy

Wilson said he doesn’t know whether the economy or a culture shift is responsible for slow days at the guitar shop. Lessons are down, and that decline could be attributed to economic and cultural forces.

“I have been in this business a long time and I have been through lots of cycles, but this is the first one where consumer prices – the price of gas and the cost of transporting goods – has had such a huge impact,” he said. “That disposable income is just disappearing at the gas pump.” Wilson said he can’t recall a time when a weak economy has affected the number of lessons given at the shop.

On the other hand, Wilson also believes that we are becoming a country of “viewers and not doers.”

“People are becoming part of the audience,” he said. “They are interested in letting other people do it. When was the last time you saw kids running around the neighborhood with baseball bats over their shoulders, looking for a game?”

Instead, they are sitting in front of a computer or lounging on the couch, playing video games.

“Our brains have become wired for visual stimulation,” Wilson said. “We’ve gone back to the most primitive way of learning. I’ll be giving a lesson and realize that the student is watching my hands. I’ll say the information is on the page, but they’re watching my hands.”

Actually, students are doing both. Wilson has designed a guitar curriculum that is taught in schools. Students who have been taught by Wilson or his staff have become college music professors, Grammy Award winners and champions at national and state fair competitions; some are just accomplished living room strummers.

“I have learned what not to teach and when not to teach it,” he said.

Where accomplished means something

To Wilson, the aim is for students to attain the highest level of achievement possible.

“We used to describe people as accomplished,” he said. “We don’t do that much anymore.”

Wilson said that every instructor in his shop is accomplished. They earn their way into one of the store’s lesson rooms by performing for Wilson and by giving him the opportunity to judge their character. Are they honest? Will they bill a student for a missed lesson? (They better not.)

All of the instructors but one take some lessons from Wilson, who has studied under classical masters Andres Segovia and Christopher Parkening.

The exception is Willie James Shay, a New York City native who has been described as the “best rhythm and blues player you’ve never heard of.”

Shay has toured with members of the old rock band the Byrds and with rhythm and blues artist Booker T. Jones. He has recorded at the late Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in New York.

Shay is something of a legend in Greater Des Moines guitar circles, where the claims are that he has played with virtually every top recording artist since the 1960s.

Shay will admit to having played with some greats and some great unknowns.

He is an accomplished blues and jazz guitarist, and he has written an instructional book that attempts to take some of the mystery out of playing both forms, not to mention country and folk.

Shay is, according to Wilson, possibly too good to be playing in Des Moines.

And he is still learning and achieving. That’s just the way Wilson likes it.