Pat Jobe
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 11:47 am
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Music Music Music. So many of us who love music find lots of ways to play it and hear it and sing it.
All that happens as Bee Sharp Music on Main Street, Spindale celebrates 30 years in business. From Stan Thomas's connections to the Foundation at ICC (his wife, Laura, books the acts) to his sister's teaching guitar and banjo and other instruments on Friday afternoons to memories of the Green Acres Music Hall and WNCW radio, Bee Sharp has touched lots of guitar strings and other music makers.
Stanley is soft-spoken, kind and always wants to talk about the accomplishments of other people rather than his own ride through 30 years in business along with his musical family.
Start with his mama. Lola was trained at the New York School of Music where she graduated in 1957 and played through a long musical life that influenced Stanley and his sister, Julie, who married Merle Haggard's son, Scott, four years ago. They had only known each other for a week when Scott proposed.
This is a chaotic story with lots of names and incidents and always Stan playing and supplying and repairing musical instruments.
Most people don't risk the occasional loss and heartache of being in business. Stan Thomas has done it with the cool, calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
What about Green Acres Music Hall? "I've known Steve Metcalf since we were kids. He had so many great musicians play out there, and lots of them needed me to repair their instruments. I fixed a Gibson Firebird electric for Sam Bush one time."
There were so many and so many of them needed a repair at Bee Sharp music which is taking up new digs behind Smith's Pawn Shop on Main Street, Spindale.
And there are so many instruments and cases and strings and stories.
How about Julie marrying Scott Haggard four years ago? "He had known me for a week when he asked me." Julie remembers their mother, Lola Hutchins Thomas with such fondness, a great musician in her own right, she made sure her kids learned to play music and to love music. Now Julie's children - Tara, Brendan and Hunter - are playing and loving music.
Julie teaches on Friday afternoons and the instruments she teaches include: guitar, banjo, violin, bass, ukulele and piano. She said, "Anything with strings."
She said one of the high points of her life has been teaching a blind four-year-old girl to play piano. She said the little girl was very good at it.
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, one of the all-time blues legends, once spent a half-day in the store, "just hanging around," as Stan put it.
Blues, country, bluegrass, old time, the music, music, music goes on and on.
Stanley talked about Russell Fish and his locally famous son, Randy Fish, and how much he has enjoyed working with them.
Nile Cuthbertson was another of the stand outs who frequented Green Acres and made his way to Bee sharp.
Gene Spurlin, who calls himself, "The best that ever was," sometimes comes by to play and sing. Spurlin's photo is also on display at the Rutherford County Farm and History Museum in Forest City.
Maybe the biggest story to come out of Bee Sharp is yet to be written. Julie and Scott Haggard are putting out their hopes and dreams of hitting the big time. Scott Haggard and The Second Generation Outlaws are recording, performing and Stan says, "Opening doors for Julie like never before." They have over 100 original songs which they are in the process of recording, releasing, doing live gigs with and hoping to catch a falling star.
And then there are smaller stories, stories that might only touch one broken heart, but touch they do. David Sykes lost his wife several years ago and he started studying the guitar at Bee Sharp to deal with his grief and he credits God and Bee Sharp with healing him into a new life. You may see more about him in a future edition.
And finally Stan has looped in Noah Stairs, a local welder whose robot can be seen at Fly Boys Pizza holding up their sign. Noah is learning to repair guitars under Stan's guidance.
What's the appeal? Why roll the dice of risk in business for 30 years?
Stan said, "I have loved getting to know so many wonderful people and putting instruments in their hands and being able to heal broken instruments and putting them back in people's hands."
Hands and hearts make the sounds of music, music, music.