mando.jpg

Is this heaven?

(Advance file photo)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - I'm not going to kid you. When it comes to playing guitar, I'm pretty much a duffer. You know, a lot of heart, not a lot of technique.

But that never stopped Stan Jay from putting a $25,000 guitar in my hands.

I'm thinking about Stan today as we all absorb the news that his famous Mandolin Brothers store, Staten Island's little own piece of guitar (and banjo and mandolin) heaven, will close.

More than two years after Stan's death at the age of 71, the Mandolin Brothers business has been sold. The store that served the likes of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and countless others, will be shuttered. The business will live online, and we wish the new owner the best.

But it won't be the same.

It's hard to believe that no more will any of us be able to enter that funky store at the corner of Forest and Oakland avenues. The store whose tannish color I always thought was like the alder or maple wood of a guitar body or neck. Strange to think that another business will be there someday, and that the building will become part of our Staten Island lexicon: "You know, where the old Mandolin Brothers store used to be."

I don't recall them ever having a sign that said "Open" or "Closed." All I knew was that if that wrought-iron security door was open, that meant the welcome mat was out.

I wasn't any kind of regular customer, mind you. I brought a couple of guitars in there to be serviced. And my wife bought a mandolin there. I bought some peripherals like guitar slides and capos there.

Mostly I went in there to browse, and for conversation with Stan. Like a lot of folks, I imagine. That was the first place I ever attempted to play a resonator guitar. The first and only times I ever held a white Gretsch Falcon and a Country Gentleman in my hands. The place I fumbled around with a banjo.

And then there was the time I wandered into that other room up the stairs off the main showroom, where all the acoustics with the five-digit price tags were. Stan told me to take that $25,000 Gibson off the wall. I don't remember what model it was exactly. All I remembered was that Stan told me they were meant to be played. So play it.

And when I asked him who he'd recommend for guitar lessons, Stan didn't fob me off like the patzer I truly was. He gave me the name of "the only person we recommend": Karlus Trapp. Who only happens to be one of the greatest guitarists and best people that Staten Island has ever produced. Another part of our borough's great musical heritage.

So what was Stan, this guy who served the kings and queens of popular music, the guy who got a mention in a Joni Mitchell song, the guy whose own playing was right up there with anybody's I ever saw, doing taking any time with me? Stan, the world-renowned expert in stringed instruments. We had a friend or two in common, sure, but I was far from someone who was even close to the campfire.

Well, that was Stan. He didn't big-league you. He was the wizard who didn't hide behind the curtain. He was right there at his desk the second you opened the door to the shop. Accessible and real. Like the roots music he venerated and dedicated his life to keeping alive and passing along.

Years ago I was in a thrift store in Pennsylvania that had a lot of disheveled acoustic guitars in the back. I was looking for lightning in a bottle. Most of them were crap, it turned out, even though they had names like "Gibson" and "Fender" on them.

The store owner was eager to make a sale, so he said that if I was concerned about the quality of his instruments, "why don't you call up those Mando Brothers and ask them?"

We won't be able to do that anymore. And that's sad. And Forest Avenue, one of those neighborhood streets of Staten Island, loses another legendary place.

Virtuosos and hacks alike will never forget it.