Editor’s note: This is the first in an ongoing series highlighting legacy businesses in our West Hills communities. What’s a legacy businesses? It’s a long-standing, community-oriented, independent business, often small, that is vital to a neighborhood’s identity, culture, and economy.
If you’d like to nominate a legacy business in your neighborhood for consideration for a future installment, please drop us a line at mail@westhillsgazette.com.
Focus on Don Hollowood: A legacy of music and family in McKees Rocks
If you drive down Chartiers Avenue in McKees Rocks, it’s hard to miss the giant neon guitar towering above the entrance to Hollowood Music & Sound.
The business has been around for more than 60 years, after founder “Big Jim” Hollowood followed a dream to turn his basement showroom into the landmark store it became.
You may not know it, but “Big Jim’s” son Don, the man who’s running the store with that iconic sign, once played in a band that opened for the likes of blues great Muddy Waters and other legends, and in another band featured on MTV.
It seems appropriate the Hollowood Music motto to this day is “getting bands out of the garage since 1965,” and a bit ironic that a family that sells guitars, including hollow body acoustic guitars, would have the surname Hollowood.
Don Hollowood’s musical roots run deep. His grandmother played the organ at local fraternal organizations. His dad worked three jobs and would leave early in the morning for his job as a roofer, then come home and teach guitar in the basement of their McKees Rocks home before leaving to play a musical gig in the evening. “He loved guitar and music. There was always music around. All kinds of music,” Don said. He describes his dad as an “idea man.”
Because he was teaching students, who in many cases needed equipment in order to start a band, “Big Jim” set up a showroom and began selling musical equipment out of his basement. “Before you knew it, we had a basement full of Fender guitars,” Don said. Nonstop music became a normal occurrence.
“The way it worked, there were sliding doors because it was a gameroom with a sign outside saying ‘studio that way.’ If we were all up at the dinner table and the cowbell rang outside, my dad would send somebody downstairs, open the door, head back upstairs and let somebody sit there and play guitar. I mean nothing you’d ever think of doing today. Different times,” Don said.
His dad came up with the idea to line the basement gutters with Christmas lights, then hang guitars from those gutters. Soon, it was time to leave the confines of the basement for a real brick-and-mortar store. “So, my dad went to the coffee can and rented a store up the street, where I would go after high school and work.” Don’s been there ever since.
It seems appropriate the Hollowood Music motto to this day is “getting bands out of the garage since 1965,” and a bit ironic that a family that sells guitars, including hollow body acoustic guitars, would have the surname Hollowood.
While music is in Don’s DNA, his McKees Rocks roots run equally deep.
His mom worked at Jenny Lee Bakery, where she met his dad. Her parents lived in the Bottoms after emigrating from Russia. The youngest of four boys, Don remembers the days of playing street hockey after school, or baseball in cemetery lots. “This was a great place to grow up,” he said.
Don, known for his red hot blues guitar licks, actually started out playing bass while in high school and joined a three-piece band called Point Blank that spent most of its time rehearsing before finally landing a gig. Once the guys in that band went their separate ways, Don asked his dad to teach him how to play guitar. His first electric guitar was a used Gretsch his dad found for him. And, as the saying goes…the rest is history.
At the age of 20, Don was off and running in the blues band Prowler, playing at Mancini’s and opening for blues greats like Muddy Waters, Pine Top Perkins, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.
Prowler morphed into Loan Sharks, and after that, Don and friend Gary Belloma, also from McKees Rocks, formed the rhythm and blues band Red Hot and Blue, and started playing steady gigs at the Raspberry Rhino in Shadyside, the legendary Decade in Oakland and all around the city. After Red Hot and Blue, Don joined Bon Ton Roulet, featuring a horn player from the Billy Price Band, a keyboard player from the Houserockers and the drummer from the Silencers. Their video “Love and War” was featured on MTV’s “Basement Tapes” in 1985. According to Don, “it was a pretty great group of guys.”
Bon Ton Roulet had a house gig at the Decade, where on any given night they might find themselves sitting in and jamming with greats like Bruce Springsteen or Stevie Ray Vaughan when they came to town in the early days of their careers.
Of all the famous musicians he encountered over the years, the one who stands out to Don is Muddy Waters. “Muddy was the guy that, you know, you could tell he had the schematic. It was like he was the architect,” he said.
After a short stint with the Billy Price Band, it was on to Jill West and Blues Attack for at least a decade. “Jill was great as a front person. We ended up opening for Coco Taylor and she became friends with a lot of blues players,” he said.
Current band 8th Street Rox came next, with its mix of original songs and covers. Don can also be seen playing guitar in what he calls “The Silencers 2.0.” Although he was never a member of the original group that made music video history when its version of the Peter Gunn theme became one of the first music videos aired on MTV the day it launched in 1981, he’s been in the current lineup of The Silencers for the past two or three years.
As for the “sound” portion of Hollowood Music and Sound, Don’s brothers Gary and Bill have done sound reinforcement for a number of major venues in the Pittsburgh area, including Heinz Hall and The Roxian in McKees Rocks. Don’s nephew Brad is continuing the family tradition by taking over that part of the business.
“You know I just feel really lucky to be involved in a family business. My dad was really proud of the fact the boys got involved. Gary had been doing something else before he got involved in the business, but I was always there and my sister also had a part in it. I was always proud to be part of that,” he said.
Where does Don see Hollowood Music and Sound 10 years from now? “If we’re just an online presence, I’d be happy with that,” he said. He credits the store’s longevity to the employees who’ve been with him for a number of years. “They’re really the best crew possible. When you find the right guys, it just makes things work.”
He predicts the family’s reinvestment in the sound and installation side of the business will keep the Hollowood brand going for years to come.
As the saying goes, “behind every great man, is a great woman,” and Don says he’s no exception. “I have to mention my wife, Jan Beatty, the writer and poet. Having met somebody that’s in the arts and appreciates your art and makes it work has been a very big thing.”
And “Big Jim” Hollowood’s legacy lives on.
Editor’s note: The author’s husband and story photographer Drew Moniot contributed to this story.
Be First to Comment