Guitar Heaven

Rock musician Russell Bentley felt like he had died and gone to guitar heaven.

Except that Guitar Heaven was that shop over there. The one next to Freedom Guitar and Voltage Guitars--the place just steps away from Valdez Guitar, Carvin Guitars, Jimmy’s Guitars, Galvan’s guitar school, Guitars R Us, Guitar Center, Johnny Guitar, Mesa/Boogie guitar amps, Sunset Custom Guitars, Barkev’s guitar case service, Village Guitars, Guitar Research and R&B; Guitar Repairs.

Bentley was standing at the guitar center of the world: the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gardner Street in Hollywood.

To those for whom rock ‘n’ roll is life’s heartbeat, the intersection marks the center of their lives.

To the east are the studios that have produced the best rock music known. To the west are legendary clubs where the biggest stars of the past honed their acts and where today’s best bands perform.

The legendary Sunset Grill hamburger stand, made famous in song by rocker Don Henley, is in the middle of the collection of stores. Gardner Street School, where Michael Jackson studied in the early 1970s, is next to them. The garage where 50 years ago Les Paul built the first two-track recording machine is within shouting distance.

Nearby are neighborhoods where apartments and duplexes reverberate at night with the screech and rumble of guitar chords being practiced by those dreaming of becoming the next Korn or Wallflowers.

The intersection has turned into a magnet for those across the country who know it’s where they can come and actually strum a vintage Gibson or the newest Stratocaster pictured in guitar magazines.

It’s a delightful surprise for those who stumble upon it.

Bentley, a 23-year-old London chef who plays in a band, was headed to Mann’s Chinese Theatre with friend Paula Urquhart recently when he spied the guitar shops from his bus window.

“It is heaven,” said Bentley, who quickly ushered Urquhart off the bus.

Said Urquhart, cradling a tour-guide book in her arms: “My heart sank when I saw these stores.”

Scott Reardon headed straight for the corner when he arrived from Dallas five months ago in hopes of launching a music career.

“That area is awesome. It blew me away,” said Reardon, 25, whose goal is to write music and land a record deal. So far he has spent $3,000 on special effects equipment, power amplifiers and pre-amps from three stores at the corner.

Musicians say the guitar shops complement each other. If one store doesn’t carry a particular brand, a nearby one does. Some specialize in vintage collectible instruments, others in used gear.

One store will handcraft a densely lacquered electric guitar for you. Or carefully carve a delicately formed flamenco guitar from the finest spruce and maple.

“This one’s $25,000,” said Arturo Valdez, lovingly fingering a beautifully detailed concert instrument that gleamed under uncounted coats of French polish.

Valdez, 62, is a grandfatherly type with the rare ability to move easily between both the Eddie Van Halens and the Andres Segovias of the world.

“I give rock musicians a lot of credit. They have to spend as much time as a classical musician keeping up,” Valdez said. “Guitarists these days are a lot more versatile than they used to be.”

Twelve guitars are in various stages of completion in the back of his shop--it takes about 90 days to make one. Inexpensive factory-made guitars line the front of the store.

The $89 instruments are for those just learning how to play. Valdez also teaches guitar: A roomy recital hall next to his shop is used by his pupils.

The space is what lured Valdez to move to the corner in 1979. Back then, only one other music shop was in the area.

It was the Guitar Center--the street’s biggest store. It opened in 1965, originally selling accordions and home organs.

These days, the Guitar Center occupies a former movie theater and anchors a 28-store chain that operates from coast to coast. Eight more outlets are scheduled to open next year.

“This has always been a choice location. You wanted to be on Sunset Boulevard--it was always the street of dreams, even back then,” said Dave Weiderman, a Guitar Center executive.

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Weiderman works in an upstairs office near where the old theater’s projection booth used to be. His walls are lined with photographs of top rock stars. Three-foot drum heads--such as one bearing 180 autographs of artists ranging from Roy Orbison to Frank Sinatra--are on display.

The stars are customers. Some are also honorees at the “Rock Walk” in front of the store, where handprints are cemented into the walkway.

“You treat everyone like a potential star,” Weiderman said, referring to the mix of T-shirt-and-jeans and business suits on the sales floor below. “Because you know what? They are.”

To prove his point, Weiderman flipped open a music magazine and turned to its latest list of top bands. There wasn’t a widely familiar name in the bunch. At least for now.

Downstairs, Niles Harper, a 47-year-old printing supply salesman from Mission Viejo, was spending his lunch hour perusing the 1,500 guitars on display. He pulled a five-string Pedulla with a $3,445 price tag from the wall and strummed it knowledgeably.

“My wife says I have 48 guitars at home, but I’m not sure,” said Harper, who started playing the guitar at 12. “Our three kids are up and out now, so I have two of our four bedrooms for my stuff.”

Down the street at Johnny Guitar, owner Victor Lillo Jr. sees plenty of affluent--and older--rockers. The former medical building that he has converted into a combination guitar store and performance stage also has a children’s playroom, complete with a changing table for babies.

Lillo moved from Canada in 1988 to open a guitar store at the corner. “This is a magnet not only for L.A., but for the whole world,” he said.

In the courtyard Lillo has turned into a small performance area, rock musicians from Israel were jamming with guitar teacher Shon Morgan. They were trying out drums and amplified guitars.

Yariv Vaknin, 22, and Avi Malca, 23, had come to buy an effects processor, the kind of device that can make an average guitar sound larger than life. “We don’t have these kinds of places in Israel,” Vaknin said. “Everything here is, wow, big!”

Younger players are as discriminating as older ones when shopping for a guitar.

Across the street at Guitar Heaven, 20-year-old Shawn Cox, a Yucca Valley resident who works as a roadie for performer Dick Dale, was shouting to be heard over a teenager taking a Fender guitar for a loud test drive.

Cox nodded when clerk Dave Isaac said that the only place similar to Sunset and Gardner is 48th Street in New York. “And there aren’t as many stores there as we have here,” Isaac said.

Next door at Freedom Guitars, the sound of the teenager’s scratchy chords easily could be heard through the walls. Salesman Grumec Barr shrugged off the noise with a grin. “Everybody has to start somewhere,” he said.

If it’s easy to pick out newcomers to the guitar, it’s also easy to spot newcomers to the corner. The place is like an amusement park for musicians, Barr said. “The first time they see this place is kind of overwhelming for them.”

Leslie Bloom experienced that feeling two years ago when he arrived from Winchester, Va., to study guitar at Hollywood’s Musicians Institute. He walked down to the corner to buy guitar strings--and spent hours walking from store to store just looking.

Now settled into a tiny studio apartment a few blocks away, the goal of the 37-year-old Bloom is to sign on with a band that plays the local nightclub scene. These days, though, he shuts off his amps at 10 p.m.

“I’ve only had one complaint so far,” Bloom said. “The lady upstairs wasn’t complaining so much about the volume as the music.”

His landlady, Estrella Olivares, said the 15 rock guitarists who are among her 55 tenants manage to juggle their practice time around their neighbors’ sleep. “I know some have a bad reputation, but mine are great,” she said.

A riff is one thing for a guitarist. A neighborhood rift is another.