About an hour south of Cleveland, the city of Canton is known chiefly as the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That said, Canton’s The Music Farm is no slouch. Since 2004, The Music Farm has given musicians in the community—and the rest of the country—a chance to grow their passion for music through the support of their vast inventory, knowledgeable staff, and inviting brick and mortar and online shop.
Founder Brian Robinson has been working in the music business since 1992, but he never planned to sell instruments, let alone open one of Canton’s most reputable music stores. His passion for music began with audio engineering.
“I was 14, and I started off at church as the janitor and then they promoted me to the janitor and the sound man,” said Robinson. “My dad would press me to say, ‘what do you want to do with your life?’ and I said, ‘Dad, I don’t want to go to college, I just want to do music.’ So that’s what started the recording and production side of things.”
Robinson followed his dream and went on to study it at The Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio, but found there were no jobs available for him in the industry once he graduated—so he answered a classified ad from a music store looking for a keyboard salesman.
“They took a chance on me. I never intended to be a salesman, I wanted to be a cop, but being a cop and salesman are kind of the same thing. At least according to all my cop buddies,” said Robinson. “They try to sell the criminal to get the truth out of them and we try to get the truth out of the customer to get them the right product.”
He quickly took to sales and ended up becoming a top salesman with Akron Music, which was part of one of the biggest musical instrument chains in Ohio at the time. By 1998, Robinson was a trusted and highly-desirable salesman in the industry. A few months later, Akron Music asked him to run their Cleveland store, which he excelled at.
“I went up there and turned it around from doing $100,000 a year, by the fourth-year we did $1.3 million,” said Robinson.
So, Robinson decided to part ways with Akron music and go out on his own, at first selling, packing, and shipping instruments from the living room of his 22-acre rural Ohio farm he called The Music Farm.
“In ’99, I started selling guitars on Ebay and when we bought the 20 acres I wanted to have a marquee above my driveway that said, ‘The Music Farm’ because I’m into music and I’d just bought the farm,” said Robinson. “I sold the guitars out of the dining room up until probably November and then I moved to our house garage and then I was shipping drum sets and guitars out of there, and then I built a warehouse in our front yard.”
When Robinson outgrew all the rooms in his house and the warehouse, and decided to open a location in Orville, OH, the hometown of Smucker’s Jam, in 2007. But that didn’t last long due to the remote location, so they relocated to the heart of Belden Village in Canton, Oh in 2012, where they’ve remained ever since.
The Music Farm supplies the surrounding community with new and used musical instruments and gear, from acoustic and electric guitars to pro audio gear and accessories.
Now, Robinson focuses on big picture market trends, and relies on his highly-educated staff of 14 when it comes to selling their vast collection, which has long-included Breedlove instruments.
“I first saw Breedlove when a used one came into Cleveland Music back in the ‘90s and it was signed by Kim Breedlove himself I believe. I looked at it and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is an amazing guitar,’” said Robinson. “I always liked the unique woods and the price points for an American-made guitar, and then they started coming out with fantastic imports that are at great price points also. So, you get a lot of quality for not a lot of money.”
By selling high-quality inventory and remaining knowledgeable about the industry, The Music Farm has built a strong base of loyal customers. Those relationships are one of Robinson’s favorite things about the business, along with the Canton showroom, which he has decorated in a vintage farm style.
“We try to create an environment where it’s really inviting, so we created this acoustic guitar room,” said Robinson. “I designed it while I was playing PlayStation, Call of Duty. I’d play on PlayStation for an hour and a half or two hours every night after work just to decompress and then in between games I would look on different sites and look for materials to buy, so I ended up making an acoustic room with this beautiful barn siding that I put on the floor and added a red leather chesterfield sofa.”
Looking ahead to 2022, Robinson is entering a new phase. Though he has no plans to close or step away from The Music Farm, he and his wife are now empty nesters and just sold their farm. For now, plan to head to Nashville, where they have another home.
“This farm was where the The Music Farm started and where I had to support my family and raise them and make sure I had a roof over their heads,” said Robinson, “Now we’re going to bounce around and see what’s next.”
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