22 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • MARCH 2019
CORNER OFFICE
SAM ASH A FAMILY IN HARMONY
BY JAMES BERNSTEIN
Sammy Ash is a third-generation
music retailer, with 45 years in the
business that was started by his
grandfather, Sam Ash, a violinist and
teacher, in 1924. Sammy and his team
have built the company into one that
boasts 45 stores, 1,600 employees and
250 music teachers. Sammy is head of
customer service and is responsible
for all physical aspects of the company.
That includes opening new stores
and designing the stores. He has lived
on Long Island all his life, and now resides
in Suffolk County with his wife
and two sons, Alex and Jason.
Have you worked for Sam Ash all
of your life? I have been working for
the company for more than 45 years
now. I did everything from clean the
bathrooms, drive and load trucks,
warehouse, sales, sales manager,
manager and so on. Our father made
sure we knew every single aspect of
the company.
What is your title now? I am the
company chief operating officer. I
oversee all physical aspects of the
chain, I build and move the stores.
I am also head of customer service.
There has been an Ash on the other
side of the phone, now email, for 95
years, and that will not stop any time
soon. If there is a problem that the
stores can’t fix, I fix it.
How old were you when you started
at the company? I started getting paid
on the books at 15. Prior to that I got
paid in hot dogs and a few bucks my
father would give me.
What did you do before working for
Sam Ash? I was a rebel and I didn’t
want to work for “my daddy’s business,”
so I parked cars, tried pumping
gas, anything my friends were doing.
How many stores does Sam Ash
have now? We just opened up our
47th location in Jacksonville, Florida.
It’s a 16,000-square-foot beauty with
all of the benefits and features of all
Sam Ash Music Stores.
Your grandfather started the business.
Can you talk about his business
plan? Goals? Do you think he
would be pleased with the company
today? My grandfather wasn’t much
of a business man and didn’t have a
lot of goals except to see that his bills
were paid on time even in the Depression.
It was my father and Uncle Paul
that had the vision to become a chain.
It was my brothers and I and a few
very trusted members of our team
that took it the rest of the way.
If you attend a wedding or a bar
mitzvah these days, you hear a lot of
electronic music, operated by a DJ.
You don't see a lot of instruments,
and I love instruments. How has
this affected your business? DJ is
a rather small part of the overall
music business. It is a segment of
our live sound business. Yes, it
is very popular in the bar mitzvah/
wedding circuit, but in the
overall scheme of things musical
instruments still dominate.
I personally love a band!
When I go into a Sam Ash
store, I see lots and lots of
guitars. Are these your
biggest selling items? We
sell a lot guitars, clearly one
of our biggest segments of
instruments. Right now we
are seeing an explosion in
the sale of acoustic guitars
and ukuleles -- yes ukuleles!
They are huge. We sell more
ukuleles in one month than we did in
a whole year a decade ago. Everyone
loves them.
What’s the next big seller? Technology.
Keyboards and recording
microphones.
When I went to school back in the
Dark Ages, every kid was required
to play an instrument. We all went
to Sam Ash to pick out our instruments.
Is this still
the case today?
Today we have
lesson centers
in a majority
of our stores
and will
probabl y
have taught
a b o u t
1 1 0 , 0 0 0
lessons last
year. That is my
fastest-growing
segment. On a
Saturday morning,
the stores are still
packed with
families
buying or renting all kinds of
instruments. It’s still a fun visit.
Where do you see the company
going in 10 years? I have two sons in
the business, Ben and Max, and my
brother Richard has two, Adam and
Derek. I want a business that they can
run together for a long time as well.
They have the capabilities to bring
the company into the future as a team.
They work very well together.
"We sell more ukuleles in one month than we did
in a whole year a decade ago."
Sammy Ash, chief operating officer
of Sam Ash Music Stores, was named
after his grandfather, who founded the
company nearly a century ago.
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
