page_title: Guitar Center
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Guitar Center / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Guitar Center, Pico Blvd. and Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA Guitar Center, Pico Blvd. and Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
context_page_description: Guitar Center is an American music retailer chain. It is the largest company of its kind in the United States, with 269 locations. Its headquarters is in Westlake Village, California.
  Guitar Center oversees various subsidiaries including Music & Arts, GuitarCenter.com, LMI, Giardinelli, Musician.com, Private Reserve Guitars, Woodwind and Brasswind, and Music 123, and used to own Harmony Central until its April 2015 sale to Gibson.
context_section_description: Founded in Hollywood by Wayne Mitchell in 1959 as The Organ Center, a retailer of electronic organs for home and church use, it became a major seller of Vox electric guitars and guitar amplifiers, changing its name to The Vox Center in 1964. Toward the end of the 1960s, Vox—whose sales derived largely from its association with The Beatles, who made extensive use of its amplifiers—fell in popularity as Marshall amplifier users Eric Clapton and others captured musicians' imaginations. Accordingly, Mitchell once again changed the name, this time to Guitar Center.
  The popularity of rock and roll in the 1970s allowed Mitchell to open stores in San Francisco and San Diego, as well as several suburbs of Los Angeles. Ray Scherr, previously the general manager of the San Francisco store, purchased the company from Mitchell in the late 1970s. Scherr owned and operated it until 1996 from its Westlake Village headquarters.
  Although synthesizer-driven disco and new wave pop sapped rock's audience in the late 1970s, the 1980s "guitar rock" revival led by Van Halen and a concurrent influx of Japanese-produced instruments brought guitar sales to unprecedented levels. Guitar Center took full advantage of this sales bonanza, and by the end of the decade began an ambitious program of expansion across the entire United States. Using its size as leverage over the musical instrument business, it developed into the largest musical instrument retailer in the country, and made an initial public offering of stock in 1997.
  In 2005, Guitar Center, Inc., started The Fender Music Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports music education.
  Activision partnered with Guitar Center in 2006; all purchases made during game play of Guitar Hero, beginning with the second installment, are made in a virtual Guitar Center store.
  On June 27, 2007, Guitar Center agreed to a $1.9 billion buyout from Bain Capital, totaling $2.1 billion including debt. The deal was led by Goldman Sachs and amounted to a per-share price of $63, or a 26% premium on the June 26 closing price. The deal was approved by shareholders on September 18, 2007, and closed October 9, 2007.
  In mid-2009 Guitar Center opened the first of its rehearsal and lessons studio facility in Woodland Hills, California. The eight studios with full backline range in size from 350–550 square feet (33–51 m²).
  Guitar Center also hosts annual events such as the Drum Off, King of the Blues, contests, and artist appearances throughout the nation.
  In 2011, Guitar Center added equipment rentals to the store in San Diego, California. Since, Guitar Center has opened rental departments in ten other existing locations and plans to offer rental services in various other stores across the country.
  In May 2013, Standard & Poor's cut its debt rating on Bain Capital-owned Guitar Center Holdings Inc to "junk bond" status, citing struggles with "weak operating trends." The corporate credit rating on the company dropped from 'B-' to 'CCC+'.
  In April 2014, Ares Management took a controlling stake in Guitar Center. Bain Capital, Guitar Center's former owner, retained partial ownership of the company, along with representation on the board. According to Mike Pratt, the retailer's previous chief executive, the deal will reduce Guitar Center's total debt and provide it with the resources to expand its footprint and invest in its business.
  In August 2014, Guitar Center opened a new 28,000 square foot flagship location in the heart of Times Square in New York City. The grand opening included a celebratory concert featuring the band The Roots. The Guitar Center Times Square location is now the permanent home of Eric Clapton's Blackie Fender Stratocaster, which Guitar Center purchased at a Christie's Crossroads Centre auction in 2004 for $959,000.
  In April, 2017, Moody's Investors Services revised the outlook on Guitar Center's B2 rating to negative, meaning it could downgrade the rating further into junk territory in the medium tern. The concern is that Guitar Center may be overwhelmed by its $1 billion debt in the face of flat s
caption: Guitar Center West LA, Pico & Westwood, Los Angeles
exif: {"Image Make": "PENTAX Corporation", "Image Model": "PENTAX Optio V10", "Image Software": "Optio V10 Ver 1.00", "Image DateTime": "2007:01:20 23:45:41", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "526", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 33, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "23/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:01:20 23:45:41", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:01:20 23:45:41", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "33/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}