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The birth of a new thread dedicated to sharing our newly-acquired "old" LP's.

The Audiogon Forum thread of most interest and use to me is the one entitled "What’s on your turntable tonight?" It was started on 03-04-2004! Reading about the music the contributors to the thread are listening to is a real pleasure, and as I drove home from my visit today to a Vintage Collector’s "Mall" (just a storefront, but with individual spaces for independent sellers, some of whom in my past visits had a milk carton filled with mostly trash LP’s sitting next to a rack of old clothes), the idea to share today’s incredible haul with fellow Audiogon LP lovers came to me. And later in the evening, the idea that others might want to do the same seamed plausible. I don’t expect this thread to be as long-lived as the one referred to above, but that’s up to ya’ll.

I have been to this mall numerous times before, occasionally finding an LP of both interest and in as close to Mint condition as one could reasonably expect from such a source. But today---my first visit in over a year---was a very different story. There was a new vendor, one whose space was devoted 100% to items related to music: LP’s, 45’s, CD’s, magazines, posters, etc., etc. As I started flipping through the LP’s, I realized this was not just random records the vendor had acquired, but rather the collection of an owner with a particular taste in music. In addition to that, the number of promo copies and rare items suggested the owner may have been in the record business. The vendor’s inventory was better than most record collector stores I’ve ever been in! All the LP’s were in plastic outer sleeves, with a hand-written note describing the record: details about the band or artist, backing musicians, etc. The vendor is VERY knowledgeable about music and records.

But dig this: the LP’s were not only very desirable titles, but every single one was in Mint condition! And I mean New/Unplayed Mint, even the LP’s from the 50’s and 60’s! Some were still factory-sealed, others still in shrink wrap but slit open. And the prices! Most in the $5-$10 range, a few $12 or $14. So with that introduction complete, here’s what I brought home with me, in alpha order:

- The Alpha Band (T Bone Burnett, David Mansfield, Steven Soles): Spark In The Dark. $5

- Jim Capaldi (Traffic drummer/songwriter): Oh How We Danced, a title I have been looking for for quite some time. $10

- David Crosby: If I Could Only Remember My Name (original pressing), on Harry Pearson’s Super Disc list. $12

- Delaney & Bonnie: Home (Stax original). $12

- Delaney & Bonnie: Accept No Substitute (first Elektra album). $12

- The Dillards: Mountain Rock (incredible sounding Direct-To-Disc on Crystal Clear). $10

- Dion: Yo Frankie (produced by Dave Edmunds). $6

- Durocs (Ron Nagle and Scott Matthews): s/t. $5

- The Everly Brothers: A Date With (mono). $10

- Red Foley: Greatest Hits (Decca Records). $5

- Ellie Greenwich: Let It Be Written, Let It Be Sung...(legendary album by this incredible Brill Building songwriter). I have been looking for a clean copy for YEARS! $10

- Marti Jones: Used Guitars (guest artists Marshall Crenshaw and Janis Ian). If you don’t yet know about Marti and her husband/partner Don Dixon, get with it! $5 (sealed!)

- Marti Jones: Unsophisticated Time. As is the album above, produced by Don Dixon. $8

- Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind. $5. Background story: On my maiden visit to a newly-opened hi-fi store in Livermore, CA in 1972, the owner (Walter Davies, later of Last Record Preservative fame) was being visited by Bill Johnson of ARC. Bill was a pilot, and flew himself and a complete ARC/Magneplanar Tympani T-1 system to install in the fantastic listening room of his newest dealer. Keeping my mouth shut and my ears open, I got a real education that day (I had just discovered J. Gordon Holt/Stereophile, and the emerging high end scene). Walter used this LP as demo material, and upon hearing Gordon’s version of "Me And Bobby McGee" (bottleneck guitar by Ry Cooder) Bill said: "That IS a great sounding record." Walter gave it to him. I bought my first copy when I got back to San Jose, and still have it. This copy is just for back up ;-) .

- Gordon Lightfoot: Sundown. $5

- Gordon Lightfoot: Summer Side Of Life (German Reprise pressing). $5

- Lone Justice: Shelter (with singer Maria McKee---whose older brother was in the band Love. LJ’s original drummer was Don Heffington, heard on many Buddy and Julie Miller albums. Produced by Little Steven.) $6

- Manassas (Steven Stills, Chris Hillman, Al Perkins, Dallas Taylor, and Bobby Whitlock. Guest guitarist Joe Walsh.): Down The Road. $5

- Henry Mancini: Music From Mr. Lucky (RCA Living Stereo, black label). $6

- The Morells (legendary Springfield, Missouri band beloved by Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and myself. I even saw them live ;-) : Shake And Push (backup copy): $8

- Buck Owens And His Buckaroos: Carnegie Hall Concert. $6

- Leslie Phillips: Beyond Saturday Night. You may know Leslie better as Sam Phillips, one-time wife and musical partner of T Bone Burnett. This album (on Myrrh Records) is from when she was a Contemporary Christian Artist. This is the only copy I’ve ever seen. $8

- Jimmie Rodgers: The Best Of The Legendary Jimmie Rodgers (RCA mono, black label with Promo stamp on cover). $8

- The Searchers: Meet The Searchers/Needles & Pins (stereo copy to join my mono on the shelf). $8

- Connie Smith (Marty Stuart’s wife): The Best Of Connie Smith (RCA stereo, black label). $5

- Bobby Whitlock (organist/harmony singer on Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Clapton’s songwriting/singing/organist partner in Derek & The Dominos, an original member of Delaney & Bonnie And Friends): Rock Your Sox Off. $6

- V/A: White Mansions (A Tale From The American Civil War 1861-1865). With Waylon Jennings, Jessie Colter, Eric Clapton, Bernie Leadon. Produced and engineered by Glyn Johns. $12

- And finally, an LP I never expected to find, and I’ve been looking for about 45 years!: Dick Schory’s New Percussion Ensemble: Music For Bang, Baaroom, and Harp (RCA Living Stereo, black label). $5!


I left a few LP’s, needing to come home and see if my collection was missing them. I’m going back tomorrow to get the one I don’t have: The debut album by The Dave Clark Five in mono.
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roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,007 posts
 
That's a really exciting haul. I feel the same way when I find desirable mint CD's at Goodwill.
tablejockey
3,913 posts
 
"A couple of times per year, I make a three-hour trip to Princeton Record Exchange in Princeton, NJ"

jrosemd-
I visited the place 5 years ago. Would have loved the opportunity to shop there in it's heyday-70-80's. Speaking to some of the locals while there, it's a shell of what it once was. 

Still thought is was a cool place otherwise.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
9,815 posts
 
@tablejockey, SoCal, ay? I lived there from June 1979 through Feb 2016. Burbank, Glendale, finally up in the foothills above Glendale (in Tujunga, home to many musicians).

L.A. has a lot of record stores, always has. I miss Amoeba like crazy, nothing like that up here in the NW.

Speaking of Amoeba, one of the LP’s in the above list has an Amoeba "Clearance Sale" price sticker on it’s label: $1! How the heck did that LP get up here?! The titles of course suggest an elderly person (I got called that recently. Well!), so perhaps his wife sold the collection after he was buried or burned.

The Beach Boys were marketed by Capitol in a very haphazard and short-sighted way, figuring their shelf-life was going to be only as long as the early-60’s Surf craze lasted. They didn’t at first realize what they had in Brian Wilson.

I scoured all the stores selling cut-outs in 1967 and 68, looking for the mono Rock ’n’ Roll LP’s that were being dumped by all the record labels. After Sgt. Pepper, ALL LP’s had to be stereo. I already knew that most "Stereo" LP’s of the time were in actual fact "Electronically Simulated Stereo", one the worst ideas record company’s ever came up with. Surfer Girl was the only true stereo BB album up until the Friends album, and I found all the previous albums in mono pressings. Same with The Kinks and other Rock groups. The 1967 debut Procol Harum album was issued in mono in the UK, fake stereo in the US. So we had to go up to San Francisco to get the import at Tower (the only record store I knew of that carried import albums).

Now about the Pet Sounds album: I have bought every pressing of that album ever made (well, not the South American ;-), five or six I believe (including the one Steve Hoffman did for DCC, and a UK pressing). They’re all different, and all pretty bad in varying ways. You have GOT to get the one now available from Analogue Productions. AP offers in in both mono and stereo, and in both 33-1/3 RPM (1 LP) and 45 RPM (2 LP’s) pressings. There is disagreement amongst hardcore BB fans about the sacrilege of doing a stereo mix: Brian mixed it to mono, his preferred format. But the stereo mix lets you hear further into the dense tapestry of sound than ever before.

Seriously, you have not heard Pet Sounds til you hear the AP version! Michael Fremer graded it 11 (music) / 11 (sound), the only time he has done that as far as I remember. $35 for the 33-1/3 version (what I have), $55 I believe for the 45 (to chop the LP side into two halves, now THAT is to me sacrilege). I have both the mono and stereo versions, but I’m a Brian Wilson nut.

The early Beach Boys LP that everyone is talking about is the stereo pressing of Surfer Girl, again by Analogue Productions. Unbelievably great sound! Michael in Germany (45 RPM Audiophile in The Vinyl Community on YouTube) includes the LP in his "10 Best Sounding LP’s Of All Time" list.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
I have a brand new to me White Hot Stamper of Boz Scaggs Silk Degrees that came the other day. Looking forward to finally having time to hear it tonight.
whart's avatar
whart
3,042 posts
 
That Marti Jones Used Guitars used to get a lot of play here years ago-- some great tunes, to me, it was always a tad bright. Moi?
Oh, the usual-- hunting the obscurities-- turns out the one record nobody liked of Pharoah Sanders, entitled Pharoah on the India Navigation label in 1977, was likely recorded in the old disused bottling factory that was on my street back in Grandview NY--a place I knew well because at the time I lived there a friend owned the property.
Hit the Austin Record Show yesterday- not very crowded, but I didn't expect it to be as the first show after Covid here. Many of the dealers said they are now just starting to do show circuits again. 
Art Pepper Today (with Cecil McBee, Roy Haynes and Stanley Cowell) has a rendition of "Patricia" that is worth the price of admission. 
Best new to me record heard this year here is 

 Miyama Toshiyuki / the New Herd: Tsuchi No Ne Sound of the Earth, Japanese big band with psych inflections. It has been reissued and the reissue is fine. 

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