Haggerty's Musicworks: A New Era of Music

LONGTIME STORE FOCUSES ON CREATING MUSIC EXPERIENCE

STORY BY MICHELLE PAWELSKI // PHOTOS BY SHILOH FRANCIS

In 2006, Marcus LaVake walked into Haggerty’s Musicworks for the first time and asked the sales associate for a Taylor Grand Symphony guitar. His dad said it would “move him.”

“He told me if I ever made it out to Haggerty’s Music, they had this amazing guitar I had to play,” said Marcus, who lived in Aberdeen at the time.

Marcus played it and then listened while the sales associate played “Key to the Highway” on it. His dad was right. He fell in love.

“I had to have that guitar. My dad always told me that if you find a guitar that moves you buy it, because you can’t recreate that.”

With three kids and one on the way, Marcus decided to return to Aberdeen without the Taylor. That did not last long, however. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” He called up Dan Haggerty and asked to finance the guitar. “We struggled to pay it off but eventually did, and I still have that guitar.”

Not only did he name his fourth child Taylor, that 2006 guitar purchase changed the course of his entire life.

“That was my first purchase and when I moved out here in 2012, I continued to be a loyal customer,” Marcus said now sitting in his office at the top of the staircase of the West Main store.

Not only did Marcus stay a loyal customer, but Dan, Tom and Adam Haggerty saw much more.

Marcus now owns the longstanding music store, opened another in Aberdeen, and has big plans for the future of Haggerty’s. “That was just the catalyst,” Marcus said of that first guitar purchase. “There was just something special. When I moved to town, I instantly had that contact and relationship. It was this little drop of water that created this tidal wave in my life.”

Taylor Guitar Experience Room at Haggerty's in Rapid City South Dakota. The store is a top 10 Taylor Guitar dealer in the entire United States.

Photo by: Shiloh Francis

Haggerty’s started nearly 60 years ago as a department store in the Baken Park Shopping Center. In 1979, Tom Haggerty had moved back to Rapid City from Nashville and opened the music section in the back of the department store. The goals were to offer musicians what they wanted and to provide excellent guest service – two things Marcus continues today.

Haggerty’s Department Store closed in 1997 with the music portion, Haggerty’s Musicworks, moving to its current West Main Street location. The music business boomed with the Haggertys offering a state-of-the-art music store for all levels and expanding to add instrument repair and an audio/visual section.

After moving to the area, Marcus helped with sales training at the music store and in 2015 the Haggerty brothers asked him to be a partner. Marcus left his job at Titan Machinery and joined forces with Dan, Tom, and Adam. On March 7, 2019, 56 years to the day Haggerty’s was incorporated, Marcus and his wife Amanda took over ownership.

“When I came on board in 2015, I really had a lot of energy to drive this store forward as an unforgettable music experience for not just the local crowd, but nationwide,” Marcus said.

Marcus partnered with Taylor Guitar in launching the first of the Taylor Guitar Experience Rooms. “We were one of the first in the nation to pilot that effort and really create an unbelievable guitar purchasing experience. That effort brought us from barely being a blip on the radar to being a top 10 Taylor Guitar dealer in the entire United States.”

Marcus said it is imperative to offer people something that is special, different, and a true experience. The Taylor Room offers each person just that. Each guitar has a different feel, different wood, and a unique sound. “Every time you hear a song and love it, there is a specific guitar, a sound, that moves you. I can give you that sound.”

He envisions one day having every product line and division an experience like the Taylor Guitar Room. He has recently added violin and keyboard rooms.

The Taylor Guitar partnership allowed Marcus to greatly expand the Haggerty’s Musicworks brand, business, and staff. He has added an entire internet division, a shipping and receiving manager, and staff photographers. He also recently hired an operations manager, and marketing and purchasing directors. “These are all new positions to this store because I can’t keep up with everything.”

That partnership along with launching the online portion of Haggerty’s helped the local business not only survive, but grow, during a pandemic despite losing a backbone of their business – the sale of school band and orchestra instruments. “We did a lot of neat marketing and growth not knowing a pandemic was coming,” Marcus said. “We went from selling band and orchestra instruments to facing over $80,000 in a deficit that year. We had a mass exodus of school music.”

Internet sales, however, boomed. Haggerty’s was prepared to have an online presence when many other stores in America had to shut down. “People were calling us because we were open and shipping stuff all over the country. We have been able to be a resource to help people stay at home and learn while still providing an experience that you wouldn’t get in Denver or Seattle,” Marcus said. “Today there are 3 million more guitarists because of the pandemic. So many people wanted to learn an instrument.”

And while the school music side has been back on the rise, Marcus said he has also seen a shift in the instruments that students are choosing– ones they can play individually and learn through online lessons.

During the height of the pandemic, Marcus also expanded to open a second store in Aberdeen. This summer they held a grand opening of a new location in Aberdeen that tripled its previous square footage.

Marcus says the success goes back to the two goals of the Haggerty family when they started in the music business decades ago: offer musicians what they want and provide excellent guest service.

“When people walk into our store, especially locals, they may say they are not looking for something, but they are. They are looking for inspiration,” Marcus said. “It is our job to create some sort of inspiration whether that is a new playing technique, new sounds, maybe it is just a conversation or maybe it is jamming with someone.”

Marcus never envisioned having a career in the music business. But, as his brother-inlaw once said, Marcus has found something that “makes his soul leap.”

He now just wants to share that with others.

“Music is an experience and when you do it right it moves you. If someone doesn’t have an instrument that creates new pathways in their brain when they play, then I want to help them with that. That is what I love.”

HAGGERTY'S MUSICWORKS // 2520 W MAIN ST. RAPID CITY // 605.348.6737