Trained in guitar maintenance by legendary guitar maker and blues musician Jim Dyson, Mr Thompson has a history of playing in bands himself, including the eponymous Kevin Thompson Band, and playing country musician Bill Chambers.

It's also as a musical salesman and repairer that Mr Thompson is well-known, and there's no better-recognised shop than the distinctive, mural-wrapped store on Skipton St. In fact, the creation of the mural, which covers both sides of the Victorian-era building and portrays a long-haired guitarist mid-solo, is a story in itself.

Created by Ballarat artist Ian Drever, whose work is across the city, he painted the mural for Crossroads late at night in the days when, Mr Thompson says, there was a lot less traffic in the city.

"I remember helped Ian come here at nighttime, at about 12 or 1 o'clock in the morning; there was no traffic. in those days," he says.

"Ian went across the road there and set up a projector, and he projected things on the building. Then he ran back across, climbed a ladder and just put black marks on the wall. The next day he came in, and then over a week he just put it all together. A mate and I went out because I've done (a bit of painting), we got up and touched it up a bit a few years back, but I just don't want to see it go. It'd be a shame."

Mr Thompson bought the building after opening his first premises in Barkly Street some 32 or 33 years ago - he's not quite sure exactly when.

"After that I was in the Bridge Mall for a few years - so it would be 28 or 29 years here," he says.

"And I bought the building in 2006."

Originally the Mares Family butcher shop (a lion or bull's head embossed pediment on the roof of the building bearing their name is long gone), by the time Mr Thompson bought the building it was Conroy's Paint Store and had a long rainbow strip painted around the walls inside displaying the product colours on offer.

He says he is sad to move on from Skipton Street, but he'd like a different-shaped building to continue the business - one enabling him to display both the instruments he has for sale and some of the guitars he has in his extensive collection.

"I'd like a place that's a big square, with a big room at the front, where we can display everything. I've got a stack of beautiful vintage stuff I've accumulated over 40 years, and I'd like to have a wall of that vintage stuff for people to look at."

With a lifetime in the music industry, and an reputation for being the person to come to for repairs in Ballarat, there have been more than a few big names visit Crossroads Music over the years,. Mr Thompson mentions his close friend Bill Chambers and his daughter Kasey, Troy Cassar-Daley and Cold Chisel's Ian Moss.

"Yeah, even Mossy came in to pick up a guitar here one time - I sold Red Symons a guitar here once... there's been quite a few."

Mt Thompson says he will keep his love of music alive wherever he goes.

"Since I was 17 or 18 I was playing in bands until maybe the last four or five years," he says.

"I have dropped off a bit of late, and just do an occasional guest spot here or there. But I always played in bands.. I just had the hankering to have a music shop all those years ago."

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