Kay Eady Photo: Supplied
When the Eady family arrived in Aotearoa in the 19th century they weren't music dealers at all – they were part of the meat trade.
That's one of the early discoveries in Kay Eady's history of the Lewis Eady music business, Preludes & Feuds.
When William Eady settled in Auckland in the 1860s, he picked up where he'd left off in England: farming.
It was William's wife, Mary, who provided the musical connection. She was a pianist and organist, and she passed on her talent to her three sons: Arthur, William and Lewis.
Arthur started the first music shop, specialising in instruments, and he encouraged his brothers to do the same.
Lewis opened his music shop on Mill Lane (behind Karangahape Road) in 1884, where he and his wife Rosina focused on repairing, tuning, importing and selling second-hand pianos.
For a European settler family trying to create a sense of home in a new land, Kay Eady told Three to Seven's Bryan Crump, a piano was as essential then as the TV screen is now.
"The piano was the home entertainment system of the time."
Photo: Supplied
Bryan asked Kay Eady a little about the 'Preludes' side of her history, but what about the 'Feuds'?
Well yes, that is a little bit of a play on words (thank you, J S Bach) but it also acknowledges how various members of the family started up their own music enterprises.
Arthur Eady had initially hoped he and Lewis would merge their businesses, but that didn't work out in the end.
Perhaps that family rivalry gave Lewis Eady the edge as new forms of entertainment; the movies, radio, and eventually television, arrived.
"It was their ability to adapt. The Lewis Eady company was very entrepreneurial, and as new technology evolved they were very keen to get into all that."
Sometimes that new technology even took the business outside of music into household appliances, and at one point, beyond the house and into electric fences.
That particular experiment didn't work out, but branching into sheet music, radios, and electric instruments did.
In the 1920s and early '30s, Lewis Eady – now based in Auckland's Queen Street – was one of several retailers that set up its own radio station.
"It wasn't uncommon," says Kay. "Quite a lot of retailers had their own stations around the country. They were called B Stations. They were definitely there to promote their businesses."
But the laws of the time also required B Stations devote a significant amount of broadcast time to religious broadcasting. Lewis Eady's contribution was a show called the Friendly Road, which became a springboard for two of the country's radio greats: Colin Scrimgeour ('Uncle Scrim'), and Ruby Maud Basham, otherwise known as Aunt Daisy.
Ruby Maud Basham, known as Aunt Daisy Photo: Supplied / Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
After the Second World War, new challenges arrived: electric instruments playing things like rock and roll.
Young men and women rock and roll dancing. Clauson, Lou, 1928-2013:Photographs of singers and other entertainers. Ref: PA1-f-192-42-2. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23179839 Photo: Ref: PA1-f-192-42-2. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23179839
Kay says the business had no qualms jumping on that bandwagon, and it quickly diversified into electric guitars and pianos.
Television was another challenge, but there was still a steady stream of young Aucklanders with dreams of becoming rock stars or concert pianists.
And there-in lies the advantage of a physical musical instrument shop, even in these digital times: people still want to try before they buy, and that's a difficult thing to do online.
Although the business can also offer you a state-of-the-art hybrid piano, an acoustic piano fitted with digital technology that enables the playback of performances by your favourite pianists.
In other words, it's the digital equivalent of this:
Roll mechanism of a Welte-Mignon reproducing piano. Image by Gerhard51, CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo:
Kay says, thanks to the internet, software can beam a live performance from Carnegie Hall and recreate it, in real time, in your own living room.
Four generations of Eadys have worked in the business and continue to do so, despite the sale of the family firm to the Chiron Group New Zealand in 2019.
But Kay admits her son's generation may be the last. Is she sad about that?
"Yes and no. I think that it's wonderful for the children to be going the way they all want to. We were very happy when our own son (John Eady Jnr) decided he wanted to become involved, but we have never pressured the children to think about becoming involved, not like the previous generation where it was taken for granted that they would go into the business, that it would be their career."
