Guitar Center is an American musical instrument retailer chain. It is the largest company of its kind in the United States, with 294 locations. Its headquarters is in Westlake Village, California. Guitar Center oversees various subsidiaries including Musician's Friend, AVDG, Music & Arts, Woodwind & Brasswind, and Giardinelli. History The company was founded in Hollywood by Wayne Mitchell in 1959 as The Organ Center, a retailer of electronic organs for home and church use. In 1964, after one of Mitchell's suppliers informed him that in order to continue receiving organs he would have to also carry Vox guitar amplifiers, Mitchell added the amps and changed the store's name to The Vox Center, capitalizing on the popularity of The Beatles and their association with the Vox brand. Toward the end of the 1960s, as other brands like Marshall rose in popularity, Mitchell once again changed the name, this time to Guitar Center. By 1972, Guitar Center had expanded to eight stores, and eventually opened locations in San Francisco and San Diego, as well as several suburbs of Los Angeles. Ray Scherr, previously the General Manager of the San Francisco store, purchased the company from Mitchell in the late 1970s. The 1980s "guitar rock" revival led by Van Halen and a concurrent influx of Japanese-produced instruments brought guitar sales to unprecedented levels, fueling Guitar Center's further expansion across the United States to become the largest musical instrument retailer in the country. Scherr sold the company in 1996. The following year, with 30 stores on the West Coast and in Michigan, Ohio, and Florida, Guitar Center made an initial public offering of stock and began opening new locations at an increased rate. In 2000, Guitar Center acquired mail order and e-commerce retailer Musician's Friend for $50 million, asserting that the merged company was the world's largest seller of musical instruments. Musician's Friend became a wholly owned subsidiary, and remained headquartered in Medford, Oregon. In 2005, Guitar Center Inc. acquired Music & Arts, the largest band & orchestra dealer in the United States, and merged their American Music Group chain of band and orchestral stores into Music & Arts (as the company was renamed). The same year, Guitar Center, Inc., started The Fender Music Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports music education. In Summer 2006, Guitar Center acquired four stores in Texas from the popular South Texas and Central/South American company, Hermes. The same