From a basement to Orillia’s main street, Gilbert Guitars rocks on
Jeff Gilbert had a dream.
“I wanted to be a rock star, like everybody else,” said Gilbert, whose namesake guitar store occupies a prominent place in Orillia’s downtown.
Although youthful visions of world tours and sold-out concerts would never materialize, the local man found other avenues to satisfy his passion for music and the gleaming six-string beauties that today adorn the walls of his shop.
“There are lots of other guitar players that are way better than me,” he said. “This still keeps me in that realm.”
It was time in a Grade 10 wood-shop class at the former Orillia District Collegiate and Vocational Institute that first nudged Gilbert toward his chosen path.
Building an electric guitar based on the hot-rodded, whammy-bar-equipped, solid bodies that were all the rage at the time proved he had a knack for creating and, eventually, fixing these sleek instruments.
The guitar was finished in an eye-catching hue of red and today occupies pride of place on a wall at his store, alongside models by the likes of Fender and other big-name builders.
“It’s not a wicked guitar, but I built it,” he said.
After high school, he enrolled in a business program at Georgian College and, as part of a class project, registered Gilbert Guitars as a business.
That set him on the road to building and selling his creations from home.
Customers came calling. Among them was local blues master Ronnie Douglas, for whom Gilbert would build a Telecaster-style model with Fender pickups ordered directly from the manufacturer.
Opening an account with Fender allowed him to bring in the parts players sought and, later, guitars.
After selling instruments out of his basement — by day he had a job cutting lenses for an optometrist — Gilbert would set up shop along Mississaga Street East, in the mid-1990s.
Initially, the store shared space with Round Again Records in the lower floor of the building that houses Becker Shoes.
He moved twice again within the same block, before a fire in an apartment above his store precipitated yet another move.
He remembers, vividly, local firefighters pitching in to rescue guitars from the walls of his shop and forming a human chain to pass the instruments to the crowd of onlookers who offered help.
“They put a helmet on me, I started grabbing guitars and giving them to the firefighters,” he said.
Gilbert then relocated to his current location, at , buying the building and doubling his floor space.
Although guitar retailers face increasingly stiff competition, as many buyers turn to online sales, commitment to service and a diverse range of offerings — from high-end and limited edition guitars to budget-friendly student models, along with an array of other offerings — has stood Gilbert in good stead.
“You can buy it here; you can take lessons here,” he said. “You come in, and you need your strings changed — we do that.”
The business remains family-run, with Gilbert’s wife and one of four sons helping out part time, along with a nephew.