Joe Caruso of the Music Emporium Helps Guitarists Connect with Their Perfect Instruments 

From the outside, the Music Emporium looks entirely unassuming: a small strip mall storefront next to a bagel shop in the quiet, leafy town of Lexington, Massachusetts. But open the door, and the sight would widen the eyes of any acoustic guitar aficionado: a bright, airy showroom with scores of Martin, Taylor, and Collings guitars on the wall, along with Santa Cruz, Froggy Bottom, Lowden, Atkin, and other boutique builders. A wood floor, oriental rugs, and leather sofa create an elegant living room vibe. There’s a solid selection of electrics and amps, as well as nylon-string guitars, ukuleles, mandolins, and banjos. But the flattop acoustic definitely reigns here, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better selection of top contemporary instruments—or a more inviting space in which to put your hands on them.

The Music Emporium has long been one of the country’s leading acoustic instrument shops. Its founder, Stu Cohen, opened the original location in Pittsburgh in 1968, and then in 1971 he partnered with banjo historian Jim Bollman and OM authority Eric Schoenberg to open a second store in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Pittsburgh location closed in the ’80s, and in 1994, the Cambridge store moved to its current spot in Lexington. 

On a sunny Saturday morning, I pull up a chair in front of the wall of Martins for an extended chat with shop owner Joe Caruso. He first walked into the Music Emporium in Cambridge in the early ’90s, while searching for information on how to build guitars. On the advice of repairman Tom Stapleton, Caruso studied with Vermont luthier George Morris, and afterwards Stapleton took Caruso under his wing to learn guitar repair. Caruso joined the Emporium staff in 1994 and eventually bought all the ownership shares from Bollman, Schoenberg, and Cohen.

On the weekend of the interview, I spent several unhurried hours at the shop playing great guitars and comparing models I’d never been able to try out back to back, with low-key guidance from the shop’s knowledgeable musician staff. As our conversation reveals, that experience is very much a product of the store’s history and philosophy.

What originally got you into the guitar business? 

I had a desire to learn how to build guitars. I liked the idea of being a builder rather than an English teacher, which I had been or was supposed to be. I was leafing through an Acoustic Guitar magazine, and in the back you had: Learn to build guitars. I’m like, whoa—that would be cool and different. I was always looking for different paths, because I just didn’t want to be on the straight and narrow. I’ve spent decades in therapy trying to figure out why that is, but suffice to say, I saw that and went, “That’s it. That’s what I’m going to do.”

After you did actually learn how to build guitars, what steered you away from pursuing that as a career?

I’m not a maker. I didn’t like all the variables and all the unknowns, and I didn’t like that you have to do it so many times to figure it out. That’s not my personality. I like the idea of being a builder, just like I like the idea of being a great guitarist. You run up to your own limitations and what you’re actually good at, and that’s not what I was good at. But I liked repairing guitars, because there is a set of instructions—this is what you need to do to fix a guitar. And I liked handling really great guitars. 

And you were able to do both of those things when you were hired at the Music Emporium.

In ’94 they had an opening and I got in the door. I don’t think I’d ever been happier in my work life. Even though I was living with my parents at age 29 and making six dollars an hour, I had so much purpose. I loved being around instruments, I loved fixing them, I loved helping people, and I always got such a charge when I would make a sale and connect people in the store. 

I was mostly hired as a repair person, so I’d go out to Tom’s shop in Harvard [on the outskirts of Boston, where Tom Stapleton did repair work], but I didn’t like being isolated. So I would always look for ways to be in the store. I set up a workbench in the back so I could still be present on the sales floor. I eventually became the head repairman, and that was great experience to have. I know how to fix guitars and I know what’s wrong with guitars, and that helps me in lots of ways.

How would you describe the mix of acoustic guitars that the store carries these days?

I think these are the best guitars made in the classic American flattop tradition that you could say Martin defined. Everything branches off from Martin and then Gibson. These are legacy brands, and I feel like the flattop guitar is an American creation, like jazz and blues. People who understand how those guitars are built and what makes them special become great builders. 

Obviously you have a lot of great instruments, but they’re not behind glass. The store doesn’t feel intimidating, where someone might think, “I’m not good enough to play these guitars.”

I’m so glad you say that. That’s what we’ve tried to break free from. I mean, there was a time we had glass showcases and the best instruments were in the showcases, but that was mostly vintage stuff. We always were like, “You can play this.” It wasn’t, “Are you here to buy?” 

And even some of our super high-end vintage stuff, while it may not be out, when you get an inkling that someone is interested in that or has never seen a prewar D-28 or a ’59 burst, you’re like, “Would you like to see that? You can hold it. You can play it.” That’s a thrill. That’s something we’ve been doing more since Covid, when we started to spend more liberally on good vintage. We would buy the stuff, but we didn’t want to sell it right away. We wanted to have it around so we could enjoy it and also our customers could enjoy it. 

Looking around the store now, I see many OMs, 000s, 00s, and other smaller guitars. Do you see growing interest in different body sizes? 

The dreadnought used to be deemed the king of flattops, right? But there’s no real need to sit at home on your couch and hold this big, unwieldy guitar. We’re all aging. The days of filling up a small music hall [acoustically] with a guitar, those are gone. The bluegrass world still embraces the dreadnought. This store had always been OM-centric because of Eric Schoenberg, but yeah, people are moving more towards smaller guitars and shying away from big dreadnoughts. 

Do you see other trends in terms of what guitarists come here looking for?

Well, first of all, it has to be exactly the right nut width and the right scale length and the right weight. Were you ever aware of nut width when you were growing up playing guitar? 

No. 

People are spec crazy and say, “I just can’t play a 1-11/16th nut,” which is the quintessential throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Or they say, “It has to be a fingerstyle guitar. I heard that OMs are fingerstyle guitars, and dreadnoughts are for bluegrass.” People have all these preconceptions before they walk in the door. They understand that a short scale length and a narrow nut width are going to be better for their arthritis. 

I’m of the mind that if you like the sound of a guitar, your brain will adapt. It’ll do what it needs to do to play that guitar. You could have a guitar with a wide nut width and one with a narrow nut width in the same room and, trust me, you’ll be able to play them, because the guitar will tell you to play it. Say someone puts a prewar 000-18 in your hands that sounds like heaven. Are you not going to play it because it’s got a 1-11/16th-inch nut width? I’m mystified by that. 

You know, guitar shops are traditionally started by people who want to know more than the people who walk in the door. That used to be the dynamic in retail: the store owners know everything, including the price and cost of things and how they are made. We had all that knowledge and power, and the customer needed us to make a good decision. That shifted with the internet—now customers have so much information that they can’t make sense when they walk in here. They’re so wedded to what they read by some other player or review writer or guitar builder who says, this is what you need. So we have to dispel all of that.

How do you do that?

You have to be respectful and kind and, above all, patient, and not get your own ego involved in that process, which is the hardest thing in our industry—removing your desire to know more than someone else. It’s the one thing that we’re constantly working on. What I’m trying to say is that we’re not the experts in guitars; we’re just the experts in helping people find their way. These are all great guitars. How could you find a guitar that isn’t great? 

That’s another reason we carry what we carry. I don’t want to sell a future liability. There’s a lot of stuff out there that has no real residual value. The only reason you would carry it is because you can make money off it. That’s short-term thinking. So I tell people, whatever you buy here, I’ll be happy to see you come back in the door with it. 

What are some factors people should consider when shopping for a guitar?

I would love to have them empty their minds a little bit when they walk in the door, just put away their preconceived notions about what they’re supposed to own, and open themselves up to the experience of discovery. Don’t be wedded to brand or style or size or woods. Just let your body tell you what feels good, and what’s going to allow you to make music, which is ultimately what you’re supposed to be doing with these—they’re not a trophy, not something you’re showing off. 

When you’re sitting there evaluating the guitar, you’re the only person who’s going to go home with that guitar. I’m not going home with you, so whatever I think has no bearing on the experience you’re going to have with that instrument. All we can do is inspire confidence in your decision-making ability. 

Is online shopping a major part of your overall business? 

Absolutely. We wouldn’t be here in this capacity if it weren’t for that. I think 60 or 70 percent of revenue is internet driven.

Does the process of shipping guitars to online buyers generally go smoothly? Do customers know what they’re looking for?

You know, there are lots of guitar deserts where there are no good shops. People don’t have access to this stuff, so they have to read about it on the internet or in Acoustic Guitar magazine—wow, sounds like the right guitar for me. Then maybe they’ll pick up the phone, talk to us, send us a few emails. If we have the right conversation, ask the right questions, there’s a better chance of having that guitar stick.

Do you have any other advice for how to zero in on the right instrument?

Give yourself time to understand what a guitar can do. It’s not going to hit you in the face in the first day or two days or sometimes for six months. You have to evolve with a guitar, get to know what its strengths are, and that takes time. And if you buy a good guitar, you’re never stuck with it. 

One quick story. This long-time customer I’ve been working with for years, he’s bought all manner of guitars. He never came in the store, never returned anything. We used to talk on the phone—nice guy. [One day] he said, “Look, I retired, and my wife said I can get the guitar. I want an old Martin.” He was into small-body guitars. I said, “I have the guitar. It’s in the repair shop. It’s going to be out soon.” I told him what it was, and he said, “I really want first crack.” 

So I sent the guitar down to him. He actually called me within a half hour of receiving the guitar, and he goes, “Joe”—and he had this really pregnant pause—“I’ve been waiting my whole life for this guitar. I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate what this guitar is if I hadn’t owned all the other guitars.” He knew, within moments of playing that guitar, it was the one.

I just thought that was a great sentiment. That’s a great way to finish your guitar buying chapter of your life, to get to a point where you understand why all this stuff is around us and where it came from, and you have the guitar that it came from in your hands, and you don’t need anything else. That doesn’t happen a lot, but it’s a cool goal.

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In January 2025, soon after this article went to press, we received the sad news of the passing of Music Emporium founder Stu Cohen. Learn more about him in this appreciation from the current Emporium staff, and watch a clip of Cohen recalling some early vintage instrument finds in this NAMM oral history video.

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