Musicorp helps nation’s musicians play on

Tony Award-winning tap dancer Savion Glover and Country Music Association award-winning band Rascal Flatts thrive in two different entertainment worlds.

But as different as these artists might be, they have at least one thing in common—North Charleston-based Musicorp, one of the nation’s leading wholesale distributors of musical instruments, accessories and lighting equipment.

During a recent tour, Glover used Musicorp-supplied guitar “pick-ups” in his tap-dancing shoes to amplify and enhance the sounds of his taps.

Rascal Flatts’ fiddler John Jeansonne uses a Barcus-Berry violin from Musicorp, the exclusive distributor of Barcus-Berry and other top-brand instruments.

Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Diana Krall, country music star Clay Walker and other artists have endorsed Musicorp products.

With an inventory of around 25,000 musical instruments and accessories distributed from warehouses in Nevada, Texas and Kentucky, Musicorp ships to about 7,700 retailers, including Avalon Music in West Ashley, Mount Pleasant Music and other Lowcountry musical instrument dealers, said Keith Wood, Musicorp’s marketing vice president.

“Mom-and-pop music stores are our target,” Wood said.

In 2005, the company posted about $30 million in sales, making it the second-largest U.S. distributor of musical instruments and accessories after Connecticut-based Kaman Music Corp. In August, Kaman Music acquired Musicorp, then known as MBT International, for $30 million.

By being a top national musical instrument distributor and co-sponsoring events such as the 10-day Bonterra Lowcountry Blues Bash in February, Musicorp hopes to help the Charleston area become one of the nation’s music capitals, Musicorp President Dan Mahoney said.

Quiet music maker

Charleston businessman Eddie Toborek started Musicorp in 1979 in the back of his wife’s dress shop. The company eventually occupied a 100,000-square-foot facility in West Ashley, which included a distribution warehouse.

In 1999, Toborek sold the company to American Capital Strategies, a Bethesda, Md.-based company that buys and sells businesses. Six years later, American Capital sold Musicorp to Kaman Music. Musicorp then moved its Charleston warehouse to Louisville, Ky.—a major United Parcel Service hub—and in January relocated its offices to North Charleston.

About 50 of Musicorp’s roughly 200 employees work in the company’s North Charleston headquarters, where sales, marketing and merchandizing operations occur. The company also has offices in Taiwan.

For 27 years, Musicorp has been something of a Lowcountry secret, quietly supplying music stores and entertainers with everything from guitars, drums, reed and woodwind instruments to amplifiers, lighting systems and numerous accessories, such as guitar straps and stands, piano benches and keyboard carrying bags.

Although parent company Kaman Music Corp. has a manufacturing division, Musicorp does not. Some Musicorp instruments come from overseas. The company’s Barcus-Berry violins are made in Romania, for instance, and its Percussion Plus line of instruments are manufactured in England.

Musicorp shows off its products at events such as the National Association of Music Merchants tradeshow, which over the years has become an international affair. More than 81,300 people, 9,170 of them from 62 foreign countries, attended NAMM’s four-day January tradeshow in Anaheim, Calif., where 1,462 companies, including Musicorp, exhibited.

Musicorp will also exhibit this summer at NAMM’s three-day Austin, Texas, tradeshow that usually draws between 40,000 and 50,000 people and is aimed more toward U.S. buyers, Wood said.

The company promotes not only the quality of its products but its customer service as well. Musicorp often provides same-day shipping if customers place the order by 4 p.m., and deliveries occur within two days, Wood said.

When Mahoney became Musicorp’s president in 2000, he made a point of visiting customers. In one two-week span, he drove 2,942 miles so he could meet customers face to face.

“It’s the best way to find out how we’re doing,” Mahoney said.

Music power

Musicorp recently donated more than 80 musical instruments to Charleston Southern University’s music therapy program at the Horton School of Music. Accredited by the American Music Therapy Association, the program offers alternative healing to ailing geriatrics, children, cancer patients, psychiatric patients, domestic violence victims and others.

Each semester, 25 CSU students will use the instruments to perform classical, jazz, country and rock for a variety of music-therapy audiences.

The company also has funded a $20,000 music therapy internship program with Trident Medical Center and has created internships with The Citadel, College of Charleston and Charleston Southern for business students.

Musicorp benefits from its Lowcountry locale, Mahoney said.

“We’re a company that has to compete globally,” he said. “Charleston is polite and charming, and people love to come visit us here. They like the area’s flavor.”