Sunday Morning News

Father and Son Instrument Repair Duo Make it Big on the Net

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: That old saxophone you played in high school may be gathering rust in the basement, but that doesn't mean it's a lost cause.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: I should tell my mom that.

In Larry Woods' latest travels, he turned up a family that can fix pretty much anything that ever played a tune.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LARRY WOODS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are like cobblers from a bygone century, father and son, sure-handed artisans tapping and tinkering, quietly using their restorative powers on musical relics badly scarred or condemned to the junk bin of history.

CHARLES FAIL, INSTRUMENT REPAIRMAN: Yeah, that'll do, John (ph).

WOODS: But the job is never done. Not with an international Web site scoring hits by the hour, and aging inventory waiting for attention.

(on camera): This is as close as it gets to a musical instrument graveyard. There are a lot of old saxophones and trumpets and trombones buried here. Thus the challenge, to Charles and Russell Fail, bring them back to life.

(voice-over): At first glance, this 1949 Grentals (ph) coronet appears dead on arrival. But Fail, who began his repair apprenticeship at age 13, will have none of that.

CHARLES FAIL: If we've done our work correctly, this instrument should look and play as well as it did when it was new. This instrument was damaged years and years ago but probably not played an awful lot. Just suffered some misfortune.

WOODS (on camera): Is there anything you can't fix?

CHARLES FAIL: Hasn't happened yet. There are some things that are not economically feasible for the time that would be required, but no, we've not found an instrument that we could not restore.

WOODS (voice-over): I was curious where they found the ones they do repair. CHARLES FAIL: Everywhere we can find one. We will buy one from a block away or we will go to the end of the world to buy one if we can.

WOODS: Horns and woodwinds, with some longevity, are their favorites.

CHARLES FAIL: Many of the vintage instruments are no longer being made. And you realize that if you can put one back into play, you serve not only the instrument, but you serve the player as well.

WOODS: And Linda Fail serves as a key player too, keeping the family corporation up and running. She's secretary and treasurer of the company, and she likes her boss.

CHARLES FAIL: Are you through? Take the rest of the day off.

LINDA FAIL, SECRETARY & TREASURER: No, I'm staying.

CHARLES FAIL: Just cut it out (ph).

WOODS: Russell Fail, 30, has been working and learning the trade alongside his father for 10 years. The 1926 Chewberry (ph) alto saxophone he was restoring and bound for Japan on a trial basis when finished didn't seem to pose any difficulty for him.

RUSSELL FAIL, INSTRUMENT REPAIRMAN: When we're done with it, it'll look like it was made yesterday. So it's really kind of neat.

WOODS: This is a craft not so much learned from books but from hands-on hourly, monthly meticulous experience, says Russell. And he enjoys the closeness with his father.

RUSSELL FAIL: I enjoy taking something that's basically ugly and useless and making it something that's beautiful and very useful.

WOODS: And then, as Mr. Hemingway would say, the moment of truth -- a sparkling coronet, born a half-century ago, made new again. And a silver Kahn (ph) alto sax, an infant in 1926, a mature sophisticate in the year 2000.

No instrument leaves the shop without a few riffs.

When an instrument is ready for the market, it is photographed, and along with pertinent information, placed on the Internet. Russell designed the Web page five years ago. Today they have customers throughout the U.S. and 19 other countries.

RUSSELL FAIL: It's not easy to tell large numbers of people where you are, and we thought the Internet would be ideal for that. So it's fun to talk to people, you know, on the other side of the world and see just how much you have in common in the love of music.

WOODS: Fail estimates two-thirds of his business is generated on the Internet, and clients are only a mouse click away from his suburban Atlanta store. CHARLES FAIL: There are parts to this country and elsewhere that's not accessible to music stores, so we get that business as well off of the Internet. So I think it's well suited for what we do.

WOODS: But before you try and contact the Fails to repair your son or daughter's instrument that's fallen on hard times, or has a few noticeable craters, a footnote. They repair only the instruments they restore and sell, which carry a 90-day guarantee. On average, they undersell new instruments by 50 percent.

So interested in a Prussian flugelhorn, 1855? A King slide coronet, 1939? Maybe a rare 1780s clarinet, or an 1890 alto valve trombone?

If the Fails don't have it, they can find it. Why, get them exploring that attic, and no telling what they'll find.

RUSSELL FAIL: On the outside of it, you see the word "trash" written on it. Inside, you have a nice Kahn, vintage Kahn 6-M, which can be fully restored. This is a horn Charlie Parker, Jimmy Dorsey, and Les Brown, they all played this model horn.

WOODS: And these skillful cobblers can make it play again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: What if those guys -- one of those guys did play that horn, Larry?

WOODS: Oh, Les Brown, hey, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Brown.

WOODS: Ah, you -- that was going to be the trivia, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Oh, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

WOODS: How many people know that?

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

WOODS: OK, wait a minute here.

PHILLIPS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Trivial Pursuit.

WOODS: Yes, yes, for $10 or left -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- less...

O'BRIEN: Is that your final answer?

WOODS: Yes, is that your final -- How did -- who was Les Brown -- who did he play with after World War Two and toured the country?

O'BRIEN: Bob Hope.

WOODS: That's right. Get out.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry. Who was Bob Hope?

WOODS: Yes, who was Bob (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'BRIEN: Listen, you know what's interesting...

PHILLIPS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) movies.

O'BRIEN: ... what's interesting is the father and son relationship there. They are -- they're craftsmen together, they work together. What...

WOODS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'BRIEN: ... it's an interesting relationship, isn't it?

WOODS: Absolutely. I think every piece that we do invariably has some sort of soul, if you will, and this was it. I just was -- I was really touched by the closeness of these two. Gosh, they're clones, they go for hours on -- you know, without talking, you know, and speaking, but yet they know what they -- each other's thinking.

Russell, interestingly enough, young Russell, studied for the ministry. Yes, he's a man of the cloth if he wants to be, and has done some lay preaching and teaching in churches. But the music, as you can tell, is their love. I mean...

O'BRIEN: That seems to be the calling.

WOODS: ... it is unbelievable, and of course Russell -- this is his generation, he's the one that created the Web site for them and got them up on the Internet.

O'BRIEN: I was pulling it up while we were looking at the piece. There's the basic. But, you know, it's actually just beautiful going and taking a look at the beautiful handiwork. You don't even have to hear the music.

Look at that wonderful, wonderful saxophone there. You can only imagine -- They should do before and after. And here's -- look at this fantastic clarinet. I don't know the story on it, but it looks vintage and gorgeous.

PHILLIPS: You're saying kids have gotten access to instruments otherwise they wouldn't be...

WOODS: Yes, well, you know what's nice about this is that you live in a little remote town in Nevada or Arizona, and you want to play a musical instrument, and there are no musical instrument stores close by, maybe 100 miles away.

You get on that Internet, and you can -- if you play, you know -- He does not do strings, he only does woodwinds and brass. But he will sell a beautiful remade instrument like that coronet, for instance, for 50 cents under the dollar that you can buy it at any store.

O'BRIEN: Wow. WOODS: And he guarantees it. I mean, he guarantees it, and then it -- if anything happens to it, you send it back to him, and he'll let you...

PHILLIPS: Wow.

WOODS: He'll work on it. He also gives you three, four days to try it out.

O'BRIEN: Wow.

WOODS: All over the world, he -- we were in there, a fellow from Yemen was ordering a saxophone, and he just sent it to him, said, Try it out, if you like it, keep it, you know, send me a check, whatever.

O'BRIEN: Wow.

WOODS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just remarkable.

O'BRIEN: The Internet really makes it all possible, doesn't it (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

WOODS: Oh, yes, well, it's, you know, I mean, there they are, sitting out in a little -- a remote corner of Woodstock, Marietta, Georgia, just working away like two little cobblers, and then when they hit that send button, they're all over the world.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

WOODS: I mean, think about it. Well, of course, that's the society we live in today, isn't it?

PHILLIPS: And that attic is incredible with all those hundreds of cases.

O'BRIEN: Oh, yes, yes. Yes, they can work on -- they can call on the attic for, you know, four or five years, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: All right, quick preview of what's ahead. You got a special one in store, right?

WOODS: Oh, gosh, next week, yes, it's wonderful. We're going up to North Dakota, and we spent some time on an off-reservation American Indian school. It's Wappaton (ph). It's called Circle of Nations School.

But this school has a very rich and troubled history. It was built in 1906. Early on, the education system at these schools was very harsh. There was a lot of corporal punishment, and it was outright brutality administered an awful lot of these youngsters.

Well, it just so happens that we're going to be dealing with a young lady, a woman, rather, who's in her 50s today that survived that experience, and now she runs the school. And she has turned it around. There is no more violence. But there is...

O'BRIEN: I would hope not, yes.

WOODS: ... there is tremendous problems with -- this is the toughest off-reservation school in the country with the kinds of children they have to -- they are dealing with, a lot of dysfunctional backgrounds, alcoholism, drug problems, child abuse, everything. And guess what? Fourth to the eighth grade, you know...

O'BRIEN: Wow.

WOODS: ... they're that young, they're that tender. And it's very good. It's -- she's turned it around, she and the staff. And I think it'll make some -- make a remarkable, show, because these kids need a lot of help, and the very people that were victimized, i.e., Joyce Burr (ph), she's now running the show, and she's turned it around.

It's called the Circle of Nations, the Wappaton Indian School.

O'BRIEN: All right. Larry, you are our...

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Larry.

O'BRIEN: ... virtuoso of people.

WOODS: Well, thank you.

O'BRIEN: We appreciate your have -- joining us. We missed you, and we'll see you again next week.

WOODS: Great.

O'BRIEN: Now, if you have an idea for Larry, you can drop it in the mail, addressed to the address you see on your screen. That's One CNN Center, P.O. Box 105366, Atlanta, Georgia 30348.

And last week or so I did dis Larry a little bit. I called him a Luddite, I think, and said, Why doesn't he have an e-mail address there? Well, Shazam!

PHILLIPS: There it is.

O'BRIEN: There it is, acrossamerica, one word, @cnn, or turner, dot-com.

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