Collecting
I was a record collector.
I became a record collector in earnest when I moved to Boston. I’ve written about discovering the used record stores and the low end of the dial – being a constant fixture at both. Eventually, I started scouring the classifieds for people selling their collections – looking for primarily 45s or singles, pick your terminology. I would flip what I didn’t want at the used stores for credit or more music on the spot. I started collecting 45s intently after I had learned that they were cut hotter for deejays and jukeboxes. And, damn, they sure are. I did many A-B tests, and sure enough, the singles are hotter, louder, bigger. At that point in my life, I couldn’t get music fast enough. Four decades ago, there were always piles of music that hadn’t been listened to yet – just like stacks of unread books. I’ll admit it, nothing has changed.
There was one acquisition that had in the mix a ton of original label Duke and Peacock Records – both owned by Don Robey. One record I’d never seen before or since – a white label, promo copy of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s “Swingin’ the Gate.” What a great song, and even though not as well known as “Okie Dokie Stomp,” equally as hip. But, among those Duke 45s were about half of Little Junior Parker’s Duke catalog. I searched out the remaining records. It took a while but I got them all, which, at the time, felt like a great accomplishment. But the greatest thing about collecting them all was discovering B-sides and entire records I had never heard – such as his interpretation of Ernest Tubb’s “Walking the Floor Over You,” which is the B-side to “Goodbye Little Girl.”
That right there is the greatest thing about record collecting: discovery. The Junior Parker mission led to others and all kinds of locales – junk shops, antique stores, Goodwills, and so forth. One day I found the majority of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys’ Tiffany Transcriptions by just simply thumbing through the bins. I had no idea I wanted or needed those Bob Wills’ records until I saw them. I’m sure glad I did. There was a time I would turn my nose at reissues because they weren’t ‘the real thing’ or never think of buying a reissued cd if I could find the original. I look back on that now and wonder when it all changed for me. Don’t get me wrong, I still get a thrill out of an original record. And, there’s a good bunch in my collection, maybe more than half, that have never been re-released, reissued, or whatever in the digital age. Those Bob Wills’ records were reissues, and I wish Junior Parker’s entire Duke catalogue would be reissued. Through unfortunate circumstances, I lost that collection of 45s.
As my listening expanded, my career was doing the same. I started becoming a collector that wanted the music more than the exact record. I stopped caring that it wasn’t catalogue number so-and-so from 1957 still in the original shrink-wrap. It became about getting the music. And, it still is. To this day, I love finding a new, to me, used record store – the possibilities, the unknown treasures that lie in wait, the sense of personality that the store projects. Used record stores are truly their own experience. The aroma of slightly musty cardboard permeates the air while one great record after another gets played amid the cluttered, imperfect perfect piles of goodness – much like my house with stacks of records, boxes of 45s, teetering piles of cds everywhere.
Record collecting is a state of mind, and a way of life for some people. I applaud that commitment. But, in the end and the more I think about it, collecting records, cds, cassettes, or whatever medium has now simply become the means to an end for me. It’s along the same lines as being happy or content with what you have rather than what you think you need. The whole world could use a lot more of that. Last October, I wrote that it was the music that mattered. And, it still does, however you find it.
I have become a music collector.
Catch me on the radio dial every Saturday afternoon 4-5pm EST with Crooked Road Songs on WICN 90.5fm locally in Central Massachusetts, and globally at wicn.org. My playlist from Saturday, June 21, 2025:
Frank Stokes “Downtown Blues”
Blind Willie McTell “You Got to Die”
Bukka White “Parchman Farm”
Vera Ward Hall “Another Man Done Gone”
Mississippi John Hurt “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor”
Tampa Red “I’ll Kill Your Soul (And Dare Your Spirit to Move)”
Roy Acuff “Night Train to Memphis”
Jerry Lee Lewis “Night Train to Memphis”
Bobby Hebb “Night Train to Memphis”
Larry Green “Long Black Train”
Little Junior Parker “Mystery Train”
Rufus Thomas “The Memphis Train”
Rudy Greene “Juicy Fruit”
Jimmy Donnelly “Born to Be a Loser”
Ray Charles “You Are My Sunshine”
Eddie Hinton “Everybody Needs Love”
Jimmy McCracklin “Georgia Slop”
Larry Williams “Slow Down”