Gerald McCabe Founder of Folk Music Venue McCabe's Guitar Shop Dies

Gerald McCabe, a furniture designer whose passion for woodworking and love of music led to the creation of the Santa Monica folk music institution McCabes Guitar Shop, died Sunday in Eugene, Ore., two days after suffering a heart attack. He was 82.

McCabe left his namesake operation before it became celebrated for the intimate concerts that have been held there for decades, but in its earliest days the store, on Pico Boulevard a block west of its current location, played a crucial role in the evolution of the Southern California folk music community.

The narrow storefront became a magnet for folk fans and musicians who had few other places to gather. It was a place to find song books and Folkways albums, get a guitar repaired or sample an instrument.

Guitars, banjos, mandolins and exotic hybrids hung on the walls, each bearing a printed flier with the warning, “Refrain from clutching to bosom." It was a rule that was rarely enforced, enabling patrons such as a 13-year-old Ry Cooder to access a new world.

“Musicians were in there all the time," the guitarist and record producer said this week. “I'd take the bus home from school and drop in in the afternoon and sit there and basically wait to see who'd come through the door. A lot of bluegrass players came through. That's where I first encountered the White brothers, Roland and Clarence.

“It was fascinating for me to see people sit down and play something really good that you wanted to learn. The idea that you can sit a couple of feet away from somebody who's good and watch them do it, that's a way to be imprinted in that kind of work.

“If it hadn't been for McCabe's, I don't know what I would have done. I might not have been able to learn enough soon enough, and I might have gone over to sacking groceries or delivering pizza. God only knows what."

But as McCabe's stature grew and its ambitions expanded into offering music lessons and then concerts under McCabe's partners Walter Camp and Bob Riskin, its founder kept much of his focus on a design career that became increasingly prominent.

A free spirit, he also restored and sailed a tugboat, built a home in Santa Monica Canyon, taught design at area universities and art schools, became a yoga instructor and repaired Citroen automobiles.

“Jerry was just a singular person," McCabe's current owner, Riskin, said this week. “He had great enthusiasms."