Ed MasleyArizona Republic
It was 1927 when Angelo “Ziggie” Zardus stopped off in Phoenix to visit his sister-in-law as he made the trip from Michigan to California, where he planned to seek his fame and fortune on accordion.
He never left. And for nearly a century, the name Ziggie has been part of the city's cultural fabric.
By the time he hung his name in neon lights outside the door at 3309 N. Third St. in Phoenix, the man had been serving the needs of his fellow accordion players for nearly 30 years at various locations while expanding into other instruments along the way as Arizona’s first dealer in Fender guitars.
Ziggie’s Music closed its doors on May 30, 2024. And it can’t help but feel like the end of an era for anyone at all familiar with the building’s storied past.
When Duane Eddy found his signature guitar at Ziggie's
In 2012, Duane Eddy reminisced about the day he first laid eyes on the cherished electric guitar that provided the twang heard ‘round the world on the classic hit singles that earned him a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (Eddy passed away on April 30, 2024.)
It was the spring of 1957 and Eddy had stopped into Ziggie’s, which had opened on Third Street the previous year.
“The old man was running it then, and I went in looking for a new guitar,” Eddy recalled in conversation with The Arizona Republic’s Larry Rodgers.
“There was a white (Gretsch) Falcon on the wall, and I drooled over that for a while. It was $760, which I definitely couldn’t afford. So Ziggie said, ‘I got something that’s more practical for you.’”
Zardus handed the kid an orange Gretsch 6012 Chet Atkins model.
“I sat down, and it nestled in there just perfect,” Eddy recalled. “The neck was a dream, narrow and easy to play. It was perfect for my hand. I said, ‘This is perfect, Ziggie. Let’s work out a deal.’”
They ironed out a deal where Eddy got $65 in trade for the Gibson Gold Top he was playing at the time and agreed to pay $17.50 a month until he’d paid off what he owed on the $450 Gretsch.
The only catch was Eddy wasn’t old enough to sign the loan himself and had come back with his dad.
“So I started to leave,” Eddy recalled.
“He said, ‘Where you going?’ I said, ‘I’ll be back when my dad comes to sign.’ He said, ‘No, you won’t. Leave that Gibson here and take the Gretsch.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding.’ He said, ‘No you can have it, take it. I trust you.’”
Ziggie's granddaughter has run the music store since 1980
Zardus’ granddaughter, Dionne Hauke, had been running the store since 1980, the year she lost her grandfather. She inherited the store in 1989 when her grandmother died.
Hauke spent weekends hanging out at Ziggie’s as a child. It’s where her grandfather taught her to play the accordion and where she learned to fix accordions at 14.
In an interview with Phoenix New Times in 2019, Hauke recalled how Zardus came to hang his hat in Phoenix.
“Ziggie was on his way to California to play music for talking pictures, and he stopped in Phoenix to visit his wife’s sister,” Hauke said.
“He’s sitting outside on Polk Street, over by the bus station, playing his accordion, and this guy comes up and says, ‘Do you want a job?”
That job was at the Westward Ho, playing accordion with a band whose shows were broadcast live on KOY-AM.
As Hauke told New Times, “So right off the bus, Ziggie’s got a job playing on the radio. He started getting offers to play weddings and barn dances, and to teach Little Johnny to play accordion. He said, ‘I’m staying.’”
How Ziggie Zardus built his business on accordions in Phoenix
The earliest reference to Ziggie Zardus in The Republic is a 1930 item that mentioned him playing “piano accordion selections of popular tunes” at a Capitol Woman’s Club potluck luncheon.
By 1936, he was being referred to as “a prominent radio artist.”
At first, he was giving accordion lessons at Dawson’s Accordion & Guitar Studio at 126 W. Adams St. By 1939, there were ads in The Republic for Ziggie’s Accordion Studios providing private and class lessons at Dawson’s Music Company at 301 E. Mulberry St.
The following year, he was advertising “expert repair” at Ziggie Zardus Accordion Studios, operating out of both locations.
By 1943, he was renting a place at 429 W. Washington St. in Phoenix, selling sheet music and accordions. That's where he started dealing in guitars.
As Hauke told New Times, “One day, a guy comes in and says he’s making these guitars called Fenders, and he wonders if my grandfather wanted to sell some here. So my grandfather became the first Fender dealer in Arizona, on a handshake.”
That guy was Leo Fender, who often stopped by Ziggie’s in the 1950s.
Ziggie's customers included Sonny Bono, Waylon Jennings and Al Casey
In 2005, Hauke told The Republic, “Our customers are like family. We all know each other.”
In addition to Eddy, that family included Al Casey, a local guitar phenom who played on Eddy’s early classics before moving to Los Angeles, where he became a member of the Wrecking Crew, an iconic collective of session musicians.
He was living in the Zardus family house next door to Ziggie’s and teaching guitar at the store in the years leading up to his death in 2006.
Other well-known regulars included Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, Dick Dale, Jerry Riopelle, Esteban and Mike Condello, who did all the music for “The Wallace & Ladmo Show” and bought his Gretsch at Ziggie’s.
Talking to New Times in 2019, Hauke recalled the day in 1968 that she walked in to find her grandfather and Sonny Bono speaking to each other in Italian.
Ziggie's Music was 'a gathering place for musicians for so many years'
John Dixon, Arizona’s unofficial music historian, says Duane Eddy buying his signature Gretsch on credit there and using that guitar on “Rebel Rouser” was “a big deal, man, and Ziggie was proud of it.”
But Ziggie’s legacy goes well beyond the store’s connection to a Hall of Fame guitarist or the fact that many people learned guitar there from a guy who played on records by the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and the Monkees.
“It was a gathering place for musicians for so many years,” Dixon says.
“Plus, the fact that every Chicano band had an accordion and that was the go-to place ... you can tweak them to make them do more what you want. And they specialized in accordion service for years.”
Dionne’s husband, Chuck Hauke, who died in 2017, was a record producer who repaired guitars at Ziggie’s.
“For the longest time, Dionne ran the store in the day and Chuck would come in at night and repair the guitars and amps,” Dixon says. “That went on there for years in their heyday.”
Dionne also held a swap meet the first Saturday of every month for many years, underscoring the store’s role as a gathering place.
As the industry changed, Ziggie's wasn't doing the business it once did
John Kally is a longtime customer and friend of Hauke’s who taught button accordion and harmonica at Ziggie’s in the ‘80s.
“At one time, they were official dealers for Fender, Rickenbacker, Gretsch and Gibson,” Kally says.
“And they carried Ludwig and Rogers drums. So they had all the pro-level instruments long before there was anything like a Guitar Center. As a result, they had pro clientele — all the guys that were working in bands in the '50s, '60s and '70s. They were the premiere music store in Phoenix for many years. And eventually, competition came along.”
Bizarre Guitar on Seventh Avenue in Phoenix, which opened in 1976, ended up with a lot of those dealerships, Kally says, “just because they were doing the volume Ziggie's really wasn't doing anymore at that point.”
The industry has changed a lot in recent years with online shopping and Guitar Center driving the mom-and-pop stores out of business. Hauke kept Ziggie’s open through some tough times, but it wasn’t easy.
“When Chuck took ill and she was really getting slammed with bills, I went in and I basically bought Chuck's studio from her,” Kally says.
“They had a studio built into the house that Chuck used for recording a lot of Mexican bands and stuff like that. After that, she’d call if bills were coming due and she was kind of tight for cash, and we ended up doing a lot of business.”
Hauke was always more than generous with Ziggie’s regulars.
“She really has a big heart,” Kally says.
“She would loan stuff to musicians so that they could make a gig. It wasn't like a pawn shop. It was just between her and the musician. If they got ill and weren't able to be out gigging, she would loan them money. Not everybody, but her longtime people.”
Dionne Hauke kept the lights on because the store was who she is
In 2019, Ziggie’s was embroiled in a legal battle between Hauke and her cousins, who became part owners in the building when her uncle died.
By that point, Ziggie’s was surviving mainly on the strength of Hauke’s resolve to keep it open if in part because, as Kally says, “it was so much of who she is.”
From an economic standpoint? Kally says, “It probably should’ve closed years ago, but Dionne kept the lights on.”
The closing of the store has more to do with health than business matters. As Dixon explains it, Hauke, who’s 65, “unfortunately took a little tumble and ended up, against her wishes, in assisted care.”
'There's not many almost 100-year-old businesses in Phoenix'
Holley King, who lives in Tucson and hosts a show called Rockabilly & Beyond at DeepOldies.com, tended bar at Long Wong’s, Char’s Has the Blues and the Rhythm Room before moving to Wickenburg, where she befriended Dixon and the Haukes while doing research for the rockabilly show she hosted on a country station there.
The Haukes “were just the nicest people,” King says. “They would do anything for anybody. It’s so sad. There's not many almost 100-year-old businesses in Phoenix. If this was in the Midwest, they're a dime a dozen, right? Little music shops that have been there forever? But not here.”
Dixon was able to get into Ziggie’s and gather some artifacts before the final day.
“I was lucky enough to be able to get in there and get some of Chuck Hauke's tapes and other things that probably would've been tossed out among boxes and boxes of sheet music, instruction manuals and all kinds of broken accordions, reeds, equipment used over the years to repair the guitars and accordions, and just dozens and dozens of accordion cases,” Dixon says.
“It's just a shame it kind of ended with a fizzle.”
The uncertain future of Ziggie's Music and its iconic neon sign
Dixon says he’s hoping someone gets the store’s iconic neon sign and keeps it here in Phoenix.
King would like to see the building go to someone with an interest in preserving what it means.
“Like, maybe they would buy it and keep it a music store, with the classrooms and recording studio,” she says.
“And then, maybe out back, because it's sitting on about an acre, it could be outdoor dining and it'd be a music venue. I just figured there's got to be something creative to do at that place instead of just tearing it down.”
Reach the reporter ated.masley@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter)@EdMasley.
Support local journalism.Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
