Pearl and Steve West
As Steve West puts it, music seems to be in his family DNA.
West’s father, Pearl, first opened a small shop at 110 Iowa Ave. in Iowa City in 1942 where he honed his trade as a instrument repairman by night and taught music at City High by day.
Almost 70 years later, the business that Pearl and his wife, Eleanor, established and which later expanded under Steve’s leadership, has become an international instrument distributor with five locations in Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois.
“It’s a passion, it’s not just a business model,” Steve West, 64, said of the lessons learned from his father. “He believed that the power of music changed his life, and I think that was instilled in myself and the associates here.”
Pearl, who was born in 1914 and graduated from high school in the early 1930s in Centerville, played in bands in Iowa and Missouri in his youth to earn money when the Great Depression took its toll on his family’s farming.
“Music was literally a way for him to transition his life as well as put food on the table,” Steve said.
After marrying Eleanor in 1940, Pearl came to Iowa City to complete his music degree under his former high school band teacher, who had joined UI’s faculty. In 1945, Pearl moved his sales and repair business to 14 S. Dubuque St., where Eleanor served as the office bookkeeper while raising their children, Shari and Steve.
Steve, who said he remembers sweeping the store as a boy and doing other janitorial duties, returned to the business in 1969 after graduating from UI. In 1973, West Music moved to its current home at 1212 Fifth St. in Coralville. It has since opened stores in four other cities, where it sells virtually every instrument and offers music therapy and instruction courses. West Music’s catalogue is now distributed to every elementary school in the nation, and through the Internet its distribution is now global.
Pearl stepped down as the company’s president in 1980 and died in 1999. Steve, who took over as president, retired in 2008 but remains as chairman. That same year Ryan West, now 30, one of Steve’s three children with wife, Victoria, joined the company as a senior vice president.
Even in retirement, Steve can be found most days in his Coralville office, where he keeps an eye on the company’s overseas operations.
Being surrounded by music each day is hard to step away from, it seems.
“If I’m ever having a bad day, all I have to do is go over to a Kindermusik class and watch a 3-year-old discover the joy of music,” he said.