Welcome to Al Drews Music Center 401.769.3552

By ETHAN SHOREY Valley Breeze Staff Writer

WOONSOCKET - The old Woonsocket Railroad Depot isn't the only local landmark taking center stage in "Hachiko: A Dog's Story" during filming this week.

Al Drew's Music, a popular music store providing music lessons for more than 200 area students each week, has agreed to contribute window setups and musical instruments of all kinds to the film, based on a true story inspired by the 1987 Japanese film "Hachiko Monogatari." The story is one of a college professor, played by popular actor Richard Gere, who adopts an abandoned dog, their lives changing forever after forming an unbreakable bond.

Gere's adaptation is set in the early 1990s, according to Dave Drew, son of founder Al Drew, who said that's why instruments from the music store were needed. "In the movie, Richard Gere plays a professor who goes between a music store, a train station and a coffee shop," said Drew. "They're building their set with our window setups and instruments and they're even keeping the name of the store, 'Al Drew's,'"

Al Drew's Music, at 526 Front St., has been serving area residents for 44 years.

"They came walking in one day, noticed the store, and said they were looking for vintage instruments," said Drew. "We shipped a bunch of keyboards and microphones down to Bristol for (Gere's) home studio down there."

Al Drew's, which has a national presence in the music market, providing instruments for such famed bands as The Rolling Stones and Cheap Trick, will provide all kinds of instruments to "Hachiko," including guitars, amplifiers, violins, saxophones and keyboards.

Drew was asked what it meant for Al Drew's to have so much publicity, both locally and nationally, and said it's big anytime you can get that kind of advertising, especially for a family-owned business.

"The problem is, there are very few family-owned music stores left," he said. "They kind of went the way of the hardware store."

Film crews picked up the set parts from Al Drew's earlier this week, for filming that was scheduled to start today at both the train depot and the fake Al Drew's Music store, which was built in a renovated storefront on High Street across from the old Woonsocket Railroad Depot.

Gere, star of such films as "An Officer and a Gentleman," "Pretty Woman," "Cider House Rules," "Chocolat," "The Hoax," Golden Globe winning "Chicago," and currently the "Hunting Party," has hit Rhode Island to film his latest effort mostly in Bristol and Woonsocket. His fictional home in the movie is in Bristol.