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Nanaimo mainstay Arbutus Music closing after 30 years as store owner’s fortunes put him in tune with retirement
A mainstay of musical instrument retail and repair and one of the last independent music stores on the Island will close its doors after nearly three decades in Nanaimo.
Arbutus Music store owner Richard Leighton is retiring and closing up shop at the end of November.
Leighton, 61, has operated Arbutus Music at its Metral Drive location since he had the building constructed there in 2002, but his decision was spurred by an offer from a real estate firm he couldn’t refuse that came while he was looking for a new tenant for retail rental space in the building.
“I had a back space when I first built the building. It was More Than Movies that I rented out to when we had VCRs and VHS tapes and then for the last 10 years I’ve been renting out to a home-schooling group in the back and their teacher was looking at retiring, so I reached out to a real estate company to rent out the back space for me and another real estate holdings company came along and said, ‘Yeah, we’d really like to buy your building,’” Leighton said. “I said, ‘It’s not for sale. It’s just for rent,’ but they offered me enough money to let me enjoy my retirement.”
The musical instruments store will close, but the music school, Arbutus Music Lessons, will continue under Paul Cimolini, whose association with Leighton goes back nearly 30 years when Cimolini started taking lessons there.
Leighton said the music school was one of the largest on the Island, with 500 students a week before the COVID-19 pandemic, and has recovered currently to about 300 students weekly.
“So, it’s a good opportunity for him to take on the school,” Leighton said.
Another division of the business, big sound system installations, will also continue with Steve Adamson of V.I. Sound.
Leighton graduated from Malaspina College’s music program and moved to Vancouver in the early 1980s. He worked at a music business owned by the Ward family that started Ward Music Ltd. on West Hastings Street, then at a music shop in Kitsilano where he apprenticed with master luthier Eiichi Ishikawa, repairing and restoring guitars from all over the world.
“He showed me the art of guitar repairs and I’ve been doing that ever since,” Leighton said. “All the rock stars sent their guitars there: David Bowie, Aerosmith, INXS, Scorpions.”
Leighton returned to the Island in 1993 when his father was diagnosed with cancer, but continued commuting daily via mountain bike and ferry from Lantzville to Kitsilano. He opened his first store in Nanaimo, Guitars West – later changed to Arbutus Music – on Dover Road in 1996. While that business was growing, Leighton continued luthier work and working with music producers and bands in recording studios in Vancouver.
“With Garth [Richardson] I got to go into the studio and do a lot of work with a bunch of different bands. I’ve got some nice platinum records hanging on the wall for it for Chevelle, Trapt, Mudvayne … But then when the recording industry budgets started going downhill, because of the streaming aspect of it, there was less and less call for that. I also went to Trevas recording school when I first moved to Vancouver and I had a small recording studio out in Burnaby, so I’ve worked with many bands as a producer and engineer as well.”
Arbutus had also opened a piano store on Dover Road and by 2001 the decision was made to build the Metral Drive store, which operated as Arbutus Music until 2007 when Long and McQuade rented the store and took over its products, students and customers. When Long and McQuade’s lease came up two years later the company didn’t want to renew, so Leighton reopened Arbutus Music and rebuilt the store’s clientele and music school enrolment.
In its time the store gathered its share of regular celebrity customers.
“Eric Clapton’s sister was on the Island here. I don’t know if she’s still around, but he’d drop in regularly because he liked our eclectic vintage collection,” Leighton said. “Of course Diana [Krall] brings Elvis [Costello] in quite often. They’ve been great customers over the years. My dad played with Diana’s dad back in the ‘50s and ‘60s.”
Leighton has about 100 guitars in his personal collection, including his first electric guitar, a white 1968 Gibson Les Paul custom he bought from a music store in Parksville in the late 1970s.
“It was $1,400 and I was down at Long and McQuade in Victoria when they were in the fire hall in Langford and they had a ’58 Les Paul custom there for $1,800 and we were all laughing at them, going, ‘What? I can get one 10 years newer at Len’s Music for $400 cheaper,’ because the collector market hadn’t hit yet,” he said.
Retiring from the retail aspect of the business will allow Leighton more time to work in the artistic side of the music industry.
“Back playing in bands, maybe, and write some more songs and make some more music,” he said.
Arbutus Music closes Nov. 30, so Leighton is asking clients to retrieve any instruments they have on consignment or brought in for repairs.
“I’ve got some repairs that have been hanging out for 20 years that haven’t been picked up yet,” he said.
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