Sol Betnun was a sax player who grew up in Salt Lake City and came to Los Angeles in the 1950’s. He had his own small combo and also played in various Hollywood studio orchestras (MGM, etc.). In Salt Lake, Sol’s parents had been in the variety store/pawn shop business. Sol had learned the business and bought and sold horns out of his house on Melbourne St. in Hollywood to make a little extra money.
In the early ‘60s he became allergic to cigarette smoke and had to give up playing in clubs. He started buying and selling instruments in earnest to earn a living. Eventually he moved his business to a house on North Larchmont near Melrose. After a couple of years he moved again to 403 N. Larchmont, closer to Beverly Blvd.
It was during the ascendance of rock and roll. Up and coming musicians both professional and garage-band wannabes started coming for deals on used guitars, amplifiers, drums and keyboards. Famously, Neil Young bought his ’59 Tweed Deluxe amp at Sols. Mudcrutch (Later Tom Petty/Heartbreakers), Buffalo Springfield (who got the idea for their name from a tractor working in front of Sol’s), Eddie Van Halen (who bought guitar parts to customized his Stratocasters) and many more frequented Sol’s. Some musicians like Harry Clay the bassist of Motley Cru even worked there.
It was a crazy place, with amplifiers in the front room, guitars in one bedroom and drums in another. Sol himself was pretty idiosyncratic, wearing multiple non-matching layers of cloths, spouting bromides like “old gold is as good as new gold” and occasionally blowing into a sax. Eventually Sol began carrying new gear and advertised regularly in the LA Times. At any given moment there could be a hair metal band buying Marshall stacks alongside a mother buying a flute for her middle school kid.
The heyday lasted until the early ‘80’s when Rock begin to give way to synthesizer based music. Sol eventually passed the business to his son Melvin who ran it for a few years. Sol passed away in 1991 at the age of 76 waiting at a bus stop. He never drove. The house was replaced by new building with a restaurant named Bricks and Scones.