I cut my musical teeth in mom and pop record stores, both as a customer and later as an employee. But then back in the day, the independent record store was as much a part of the neighborhood as the butcher, the baker, and the candy store.
The fact is I bought my very first record at such a store. It was the Beatles' 45 for "I Want To Hold Your Hand" backed with "I Saw Her Standing There." I begged my mom to take me up to Harper's Records in the West Seattle Junction to get it the day after I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I was all of seven years old.
The store was run by a sweet, little old lady named Mrs. Harper who immediately took a shine to her youngest customer. So when I came back a few weeks later to buy my very first album, The Beach Boys In Concert, she even remembered my name. Mrs. Harper and I eventually got to be such great pals that she even promised to hire me once I was old enough to work there. Unfortunately, she didn't live that long.
Neighborhood record stores had changed so much by the time that I did come of age, though, I'm not sure Mrs. Harper would have been cut out for it anyway. The record store that ended up taking Harper's place as the neighborhood music hub was called Penny Lane. And sure enough, after spending countless hours hanging out there every day after school, driving the owner crazy, he ended up hiring me shortly after I graduated.
Like most record stores in the seventies, Penny Lane was manned by long-haired music-loving hippies like myself. It was the sort of place that the other music freaks in the neighborhood came to know as a trusted source where you could ask the guy behind the counter "what's new and good?" and you'd rarely, if ever, be steered wrong. If you loved music, the neighborhood record store could in fact be a wonderful place of discovery.
Article comments
1 - Rhys Williams
Amen Glen! I work in just such a store and can't wait to go to work tommorrow! Any Leeds residents reading this should definitely drop by Jumbo tommorrow!
2 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Happy National Record Store Day, Glen. Before book stores, I stumbled into my 15-year dream job working in and managing record stores and also miss those days. I was the Cesspool of Useless Information Trivia Guy - other record stores even called me when they were stumped with a customer question.
By the way, my very first album was also 'The Beach Boys in Concert' - recorded in Santa Monica, my birthplace.
3 - MarkSaleski
my first album was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, purchased in the record section of kings dept. store in middletown ct.
4 - Glen Boyd
Wow...I was like 15 when Yellow Brick Road came out. Me and Gordon really must be old...LOL...
Today I hit several local indie stores with an out of town buddy, who ended up spending a ton of money. All I got was the new Wilco live DVD...which was playing at Easy Street when I walked in. They musta known I was coming...
-Glen
5 - MarkSaleski
i got the Wilco, the Bruce 7" and also Working On A Dream on vinyl.
cool story about the store i was at: apparently a guy came in later in the day and bought one copy of every 7" they had. they asked him if he was celebrating record store day....nope, he had just purchased a jukebox and needed some cool stuff to stock it.