FOLK MUSIC CENTER
MUSEUM AND STORE
SERVING CLAREMONT, CA AND THE WORLD FOR MORE THAN 60 YEARS
Instruments
The Folk Music Center has an incredible assortment of some of the most amazing instruments you could ever find. You could come into the store every day of your life and see something new each time. Give us a call or come by.
Museum
In 1976, the Folk Music Center Museum was incorporated as a non-profit educational, cultural corporation. The Folk Music Center Museum has hundreds of rare and antique musical instruments and artifacts of cultures from around the world.
Instruction
The Folk Music Center offers professional lessons to students of all ages and levels: beginning, intermediate, or advanced. Our highly qualified instructors will provide you with the knowledge and guidance you are looking for.
Ellen’s Speech Notes
Claremont Heritage, Treasury of Music
July 27, 2024
Long, long ago before Dorothy and Charles Chase opened the Folk Music Center in Claremont, there was Hebert’s Music Store whose inventory included classical music. It was located on Yale Avenue where Raku used to be and is now DeeLux. In around 1958 it was bought and renamed eponymously, Jay Doty’s.
When my father went to Jay Doty to explain that his plan for a folk music store would not be competition, Doty aghast at the very idea sputtered “Folk Music? In Claremont?” Then added “Claremont, Mr. Chase, is an island of culture in a sea of slobs.”
Jay Doty and his friends believed orchestral instruments and classical repertoire to be superior to other musical forms sincerely believing they were doing their part to keep Claremont’s music respectable. Be that as it may—folk music was the art form that was most effectively challenging social conventions and capturing America’s imagination.
People young and old were clamoring to learn how to play the guitar and the banjo. They were inspired by folk music: by chain-gang songs, prison songs, cowboy songs, civil rights and gospel songs, murder ballads, union songs, and antiwar songs. They were moved by protest songs and ballads about hard times, about the dustbowl, songs that told the real stories of struggling and marginalized peoples.
In August of 1958, 66 years ago, the Folk Music Center revolutionized music in Claremont. The store is now an institution that is both a destination and a legend. Multiple generations have made pilgrimages to the Folk Music Center to connect with the music and spirit of the place. But you don’t have to be a Chase or a Harper for the Folk Music Center to feel like coming home. Our extended community has always loved the store for supporting the live, organic music of the people, and for making a home and performance space for musicians of all stripes and from all places.
My son Ben has made a name for himself writing, singing and recording songs deeply rooted in the music of his family and has toured the world for over for 3 decades. Visitors from four continents come to Claremont to experience his home town.
We hear from people all over the country who are carrying on the traditions of Dorothy and Charles Chase teaching and playing and singing the folk songs that keep alive the voices of people past and present.
When people come together to sing, be it in a band, church, temple, synagogue, picket line, protest march, ukulele club, or living room—wherever voices are raised together in song—that is where folk music lives.
I want to thank the uniquely skilled and talented staff at the store: Henry Barnes, Jerry O’Sullivan, Marguerite Millard, David Millard and my grandsons: CJ Harper, Saul Harper and Zev Harper and our sound engineer, Pat Keegan for their dedication. I especially want to thank everyone for the Folk Music Center still being here.