Don Hoos made a living as a pharmacist, starting in his family’s legendary Evanston drugstore, Hoos Drugs, but he made a life out of music, especially bluegrass music, listening to it, recording it and sharing his enthusiasm for it with others.
“Don was a kind of mystic musical elf,” said musician and music writer Stuart Rosenberg. “He had the most remarkable storehouse, both of musical knowledge — not just about bluegrass — but about the entire breadth of American vernacular music.”
“You’d walk in and he had the music playing,” said musician Harris “Chip” Covington, who worked in the store while he was in high school in the late 1960s.
The store, which closed in 1994, drew students from nearby Northwestern University, many lured more by its liberal check-cashing policy than by its eclectic mix of homemade pies, candy, photo equipment and pharmacy items.
Rosenberg said Hoos could recognize fellow travelers in the quest for interesting new music. “Don knew who else had the virus he had,” Rosenberg said. “It was a little community and he was our ringleader.”
Hoos, 81, died of natural causes on Feb. 25 in The Grove of Skokie, according to his daughter, Delaine Staffen. He had lived in Wilmette for about 55 years.
Hoos was a graduate of Evanston Township High School and went on from there to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he earned an undergraduate degree in 1958 and completed pharmacist training in 1959, his daughter said.
From there, he went into the family business, then run by his late father, Ken, and his brother Bill, who died in 2003. Covington said the store was a community hub, close to Northwestern at Clark Street and Sherman Avenue in a strip that also included a burger place, a music store and a student bookstore.
Hoos’ nephew K.C. Hoos said the store for years had a soda fountain with hamburgers, milkshakes and even a special “shake” that pharmacists whipped up as a local version of baby formula.
The soda fountain eventually gave way to a camera counter, featuring high end cameras and photo gear and even offering film development service from a dark room in Bill Hoos’ house.
A big draw for students was what a 1994 Tribune story called the “low pressure” check-cashing policy for customers not known for carrying large checking account balances. The store would cash a $20 personal check in return for a 50-cent purchase. So students were often seen scouring the aisles looking for a small cheap item to buy. Chapstick was very popular.
Hoos and his brother Bill bought their father out in 1974. Don Hoos sold his share of the business to his brother around 1989. He continued to work as a pharmacist, including occasionally filling in for his brother and working for larger pharmacies for several years. But his first love was music.
Hoos met Rosenberg through the store. Rosenberg was studying music with Kenneth Burns, whose stage name was Jethro and who with Henry “Homer” Haynes formed the famous country musical duo Homer and Jethro. Burns lived in Evanston.
“I wandered into Hoos Drugs and Don knew who I was,” Rosenberg said. “He had heard I was studying with Jethro. That was the beginning of a relationship that continued on for the rest of Don’s life.”
Hoos had a special fondness for bluegrass, the music he usually had playing in the store. But his tastes were wide-ranging and his collections included music from the ’60s, swing, old vaudeville tunes and more.
“A South American string ensemble or some traditional Cajun music, something you’d never imagined,” Rosenberg said. “He’d see you, his hand would go under the counter and he’d come up with a couple of cassettes. No matter what it was, Don had it.”
Hoos cataloged his collection in notebooks full of information on the music, noting the title and performer and where and when he came by it, including details of the many live recordings he’d made, often nearly one-of-a-kind.
“He had a recording of (Jethro) Burns with Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass,” Covington said.
Hoos not only gave away cassettes, but also traded recordings he had for others that interested him. This, of course, was all in the days before file sharing and internet streaming.
“He wanted everyone to understand how incredibly wonderful and transcendent were the (musical) experiences he had,” Rosenberg said. “He found people that understood music as he did and he imbued them with the love, the knowledge — and the cassette.”
K.C. Hoos said the store’s location at Clark and Sherman was marked with a plaque about 10 years ago.
In addition to his daughter, Hoos is also survived by his wife Elaine; his son, David; and three grandchildren.
Services were held.
Graydon Megan is a freelance reporter.
