History

Back in the early 90s, Chuck Bloom had an inspired thought: If we can buy books and CDs and all sorts of stuff online, why not sell guitars online? You see, back then, no one else was doing this—the big corporate online stores were not yet even a twinkle in the eye of some CEO. But Chuck managed to pull it off: In early 1995, he founded Shoreline Acoustic Music, the world's first online guitar store. To give you some perspective, his registration of this shop's original domain, "samusic.com", predates eBay, and roughly coincided with the launch of Amazon.

The online store was at first quite small—basically just Chuck in his living room—but his impact was large. You can check here and here for a few examples of the early incarnations of Shoreline Music. The guitars you see there are now household names among acoustic guitar fanatics, but Chuck's website was really the first place where anyone in the world could go to check out of all these instruments. It was certainly my first exposure to handmade guitars, as well as the notion that I could buy a guitar sight unseen, based entirely on the testimony of the seller. Long before I bought this store, I spent many hours drooling over the guitars Chuck was selling.

Well, after a few years in the guitar business, Chuck put his store up for sale. And his timing could not have been better for me—I had worked as a philosophy professor and had launched an independent company several years prior, but at the time I ran across Chuck's "For Sale" sign, I was doing hard time in corporate management, getting more miserable by the day. In a personal sense, the music business was an obvious escape hatch: I have spent 50 years making music on stage (I guess that means I’m old now!). A friend told me at the time that owning a music store was written into my DNA, and that all my other pursuits had been fighting that destiny. I think he was right.

This shop has taken on many forms over the last several decades; perhaps most notable among those was my long stint in Durango, CO, and the really cool storefront I had there. I have since moved to the coast of Maine, and the mix of instruments and gear I’m selling has changed to reflect my ongoing musical journey, but the essentials endure:  Cool, handmade instruments, world-class gear, fast, free shipping, and someone who loves making music as much as you do.

Feel free to drop me a line with any questions, and if you’re going to be in Maine, let me know—we’ll grab some lobster and go play handpans on the coast.

Thanks as always for your support.

John Fowler
Owner
Shoreline Music