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Down one side of Folkies music shop in Kilburn, north-west London, you can still see a yellow sign that reads “Accordions”. In the basement, you’ll find a smaller sign listing brands that used to be sold from the building – Cantori, Gallini, Luciano, Bugari: it was the capital’s go-to shop for the instrument in the early 20th century. Today you’ll still find the odd accordion in stock at Folkies, but it’s just one string to the shop’s bow.
“I like the quirky stuff and the strange instruments that you’ve never worked on before but that you get to know because there’s so many immigrants around here, including myself,” says Israel-born owner Omri Chetrit, gesturing at a group of lute-like instruments, including a Bulgarian gadulka, a bouzouki from Crete and a Spanish bandurria. “People bring music from all over.”
Folkies began in 2008 as a collaboration between Chetrit, a luthier and former employee of the now closed Blanks music shop further down Kilburn High Road, and John Leslie, the owner of the old Accordions shop. When Leslie died in 2015, Chetrit assumed responsibility for the labyrinthine space, whose scope he has gradually expanded from folk to music-making of all kinds.
Instruments line every horizontal and vertical surface in the shop: a 1921 Gibson mandolin (£2,499) predates what Chetrit calls the “guitar revolution” when the first electric guitars began to emerge in the 1930s; a 1954 mahogany Martin acoustic guitar is, at £6,000, the most expensive on display; a 1977/78 Fender USA Stratocaster (£2,495) awaits aspiring Jimi Hendrixes. Without a price (but not not for sale either) is a banjolele signed by actor and musician George Formby in 1938.
There is plenty for entry-level musicians too: Chetrit has seen a surge in popularity of SX’s jazz bass (£239) thanks to its use by Laura Lee of the rock band Khruangbin. Acoustic guitars, such as the Yamaha C30M, can be acquired for as little as £139. Filling the nooks between the instruments is every manner of musical accessory, from picks (from 50p) to cables (from £6.99) and drumsticks (from £5), while packets of strings for guitars, ouds, violins and banjos tile the wall behind the till.
At the heart of the space sits the workshop, so you’re always within earshot of the inquisitive twang of strings being tuned or the filing of frets. Chetrit likens it to an open-kitchen sushi restaurant where you can see food being prepared. There are two in-house luthiers working on everything from standard guitar set-ups (from £70) to fixing structural damage (POA). “It’s the heart of the show,” he says. “The workshop is always busy for us.”
With the building under redevelopment and the internet squeezing its custom, Folkies’ future is far from certain. However, the area, which gave its name to Ian Dury’s band Kilburn and the High Roads, has a musical legacy worth protecting, Chetrit believes. And there are things that only a bricks-and-mortar music store can offer: the downstairs teaching spaces and recording studio, tailored advice from staff, and a chance to play an instrument before you commit to it. It’s an approach that has brought London Grammar’s guitarist Dan Rothman to the shop and sees The 1975’s Matty Healy return regularly to buy anything that looks “a bit weird”.
A couple of years ago, a woman came to Folkies with a saxophone to sell. She had bought it online as a gift for her husband’s 40th birthday, but he had found it more difficult to play than he expected and it was gathering dust. It turned out to be defective and wouldn’t have produced music for John Coltrane himself.
“This poor guy was trying to learn an instrument, it was his dream,” says Chetrit. “And the instrument wouldn’t play.” If she’d bought it from Folkies, Chetrit concludes, it could have been properly set up before the man had tried to blow a single note. “It doesn’t matter if someone buys a £50 guitar or a £2,000 guitar,” he says. “We’re always going to make sure that it plays nicely.”
