Ella Guru calls it quits and has a great big sale
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
Last week, Atlanta found out it’s losing yet another mom-and-pop record store when Ella Guru owner Don Radcliffe announced he’s closing up shop at the end of February. “I didn’t quite make it 10 years,” Radcliffe offers with an awe-shucks smirk.
The news of Ella Guru’s demise seemed all the more poignant as it arrived the same week Bruce Springsteen blathered on in the New York Times that he made a mistake by selling his new greatest hits CD exclusively through Wal-Mart. But Radcliffe laughs it off, saying that big-box retailers aren’t to blame as much as the larger cultural shift in how music reaches listeners – i.e., the Internet.
“People just don’t consume music the way they used to,” he says. “I love the brick and mortar thing. I got into this business so I could have one-on-one interactions with customers, but if I don’t have enough customers, what’s the point of keeping a retail store open?”
