The year was 1964. The Beatles were tearing up the Australian music charts with hits like ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. Elvis, The Animals, Roy Orbison and Australia’s own Billy Thorpe were up there as well. And a young 24 year old by the name of Dale Cleves opened a little music store in the country town of Mt Gambier, South Australia.

Music was in his blood. His grandfather Frederick was an entertainer and promoter in the early 1900s, his grandmother Jessie was a pianist and singer, and his father Frank was a professional drummer and band manager who went on to be known as ‘South Australia’s King of Swing’.
So it was probably inevitable Dale would follow in such musical footsteps.

Dale not only started a local music store, he ran The Barn Palais (now a fine dining restaurant with accomodation), an entertainment venue with the who’s who of the Australian music industry passing through over the years. As if that wasn’t enough, he also co-founded the Generations of Jazz festival Dale in 1982 - one of the region’s biggest events attracting musicians from all over Australia.

In 2012, Dale himself was awarded an Order of Australia medal for service to the tourism and hospitality industry, and to music and in 2024 he quite rightly went on to be inducted into the South Australian Music Hall of Fame.

Along the way he opens another Dale Cleves Music store across the Victorian border in nearby Warrnambool in the 1980s, and in the 1990s the Cleves family not only purchase Winston Music in the suburbs of Adelaide but his son Michael sets about reinventing it. The group quickly becomes Yamaha Music Australia’s biggest national piano account, and the stage is set for what comes next.

In 2015, Michael Cleves spots a gap in the shifting musical instrument landscape in Melbourne, Victoria, and opens what is initially a temporary, ‘pop up’ piano store on the edge of the CBD. The concept is simple: Big range. Great warehouse-direct prices. Keep it simple. And the Australian Piano Warehouse business begins.

Before long the temporary store is a permanent store, and soon after that, the concept goes national with stores across Australia and Australian Piano Warehouse becomes Australia’s No 1 piano retailer.

In 2019 the opportunity to revive the legendary Billy Hyde brand in Victoria comes up and the Cleves family jump at the chance. They open a superstore in Melbourne and it’s a hit with the local market, instantly setting the standard for musical instruments retailing in Australia.

Not long after that, a similar opportunity comes up with Kosmic Sound in Perth, Western Australia. Having previously been voted one of the best musical instrument stores in the world, bringing Kosmic back to its former glory was always going to be hard work, and it’s made even more challenging when the grand opening just happens to coincide with the Covid-19 pandemic hitting Australia. Somehow, against the odds, the team rally and open at a time when so many other retailers are closing, and again, the musicians of Perth embrace the new business.

A few years later in 2021 South Australia gets a Billy Hyde Music superstore. Again, it quickly becomes a much loved destination for the state’s musicians, and when the state government decide the location would be perfect for a new major road development, the team don’t let a demolition stop the music, and they open an even bigger and better store in the Adelaide CBD in March 2025.

Like any good performance, only time will tell what’s in store for an encore.