For The Record

5000 is the number I have used for quite some time to describe the six floor-to-ceiling bookcases full of phonograph records in my basement. Actually, I stopped counting between 3000 and 4000 and, even now, I don’t know the real number. I just kept buying records. There was a “pusher” at Tower Records on Mercer Street here in Seattle who wouldn’t let me out the door without a handful of new music to sink my ears into.

Music has been a passion of mine as long as I can remember. My mom and dad loved music. It was always around. My first 45 (a small record with a big hole in it) was Elvis’s “Wear your ring around my neck” and my first 33 1/3 LP was the soundtrack from the movie South Pacific, which I had just seen in Todd-AO, the successor to Cinerama. Wow, there ain’t nothing like a dame… that Mitzi Gaynor was something else!

Regardless, you know where most of the money from my paper route was going. Once I was in school, there was always a record store on the way home and they had listening booths where you could sample the music before you bought the album. Those booths were a record store owner’s delight…because I almost always bought the album.



My taste in music is eclectic. There is not much that I don’t like, though acid rock and some grunge get a little hard on the ears after an hour or two. My “collection” grew in every direction imaginable. Jazz, classical, rock, opera, cast recordings, soundtracks and lots of world music when it was called African, French, Reggae, Calypso or Samba. And that doesn’t count my great Klezmer and Zydeco albums and the Maori Chants.

I could go on but I’ve got to get to the point of this story. All those records, along with the books and video tapes, in the basement came from years of cruising shops while travelling. It was a great way to fill empty time in the evenings and the occasional weekend when I was on the road. A few months ago on a complete whim, I decided to get rid of the VHS video tapes. I had over 1500 movies and TV shows on tape but have steadily been building a duplicate DVD collection . I converted some tapes to DVD, gave a few away to friends and then trashed the rest. It was actually pretty easy…and cathartic.

But then I began to stare at the record albums. There is a lot of sentimentality associated with them. Music does that to you. I even backed them up with turntables that haven’t even been out of the packing boxes, just to make sure I could always play them. So, I invested in another turntable that could digitize records and even cassette tapes. I picked almost 1000 that ended up on cd’s or my iPod. Then I started thinking what would I do with the records if we moved again. A client in the air freight business once told me that the heaviest thing to ship per cubic inch is phonograph records. I’ve carted most of these from one end of the country to the other and can vouch for the fact that they are quite a load.

At UW, I have a good friend that has always been ready to talk records and music with me. I decided to ask him what he thought I should do. “It depends on what you’ve got,” he said. So I invited him over to take a look and give me an assessment. He’s very serious about records and music. One thing that I learned in this process is that I am not a “collector”. I’m a “buyer”. I’ve always impulsively bought music that moved me wherever I was…Chinese string music from the streets of Beijing…and that kind of thing. My friend, Dave, is a collector. I have 5000 albums. He has 25,000 and he knows who designed most of the album covers. That’s a collector.

Dave spent a summer evening going through the stacks of records on the garage floor, looking closely at almost every one. He even wears a special stocking cap when he does these searches…for good luck in finding the ultimate album, I guess. “You’ve kept them in pretty good shape,” he said. Except for a few that barely survived the college drinking parties, he was right. “Too bad you wrote your name on them.” Oops, that’s the collector talking. He identified a handful that he thought, with some effort, might really be worth something on eBay. I let him have his pick before Jane cooked us dinner but there were still thousands left.

“Some are worth a few dollars, most are worth 50 cents or a nickel,” he told me. “I can call a couple of guys who have a lot of records and we could have them take a look.” “Fine,” I said. When Dave’s two friends each went through all the albums separately, a small stack appeared in each of their corners. This is where my picture of a “collector” became even clearer. I thought I had some very unique albums that only I liked and that others had probably never seen or heard. But, there was hardly an album that these guys didn’t look at and say “I’ve got two or three copies of this but the back cover was done in Nashville by a famous artist and it’s in better shape than any of mine.” Out of my league!

We made a deal for everything, loaded their van and said goodbye to decades of music enjoyment. I’ve kept the one’s that Dave told me might have some real value. Then I found another stash in the basement that I had missed so I’ve ended up with maybe 100 that take up ¾ of one shelf…and 5 ½ empty bookcases. Oh, there has been some seller’s remorse. I stood in line to buy every Beatles and Stones album the day it came out. I had a couple of folk albums that were new to my friend who is one of the original Brothers Four. There were cast albums from Broadway Shows that closed the first week. Several autographs that I couldn’t part with (I learned that some of the covers are worth more than the records.). My “pusher” at Tower turned me on to Larry Jon Wilson and that small collection even stumped the “collectors”. Memories!

All in all, it was a great experience. I learned a lot more about music and what it means to people. Still, I’ve got 20,000 songs on two iPods and about 1000 cd’s for what they’re worth. My friend Dave and I have lots more music to talk about and I’m very close to selling the cd’s and then starting to sort through the books. Don’t worry, the DVD collection has moved from the floor to the bookcases and continues to grow. I’ve got some great obscure little films that a “collector” will look at one day and say, “Wow! I’ve never seen this before.” Cool! I'll enjoy the moment.