Friday, October 26, 2007
Riffs: Stars on 45
Ralph Berrier
Riffs, the regional music scene as heard by The Roanoke Times reporter Ralph Berrier, will appear weekly on Sundays.
Recent columns
I bought all my records at Marty's Record Shop. By records, I mean singles. By singles, I mean 45s.
Good ol' 45s. I had stacks of them. Wafer-thin, black, vinyl records, with recognizable labels and protective sleeves that were as artfully detailed as album covers, 45s were like musical junk food to me. When we had a hankering for a hamburger, my family dined at Ray's Kingburger. When I craved music, I bought 45s with my own money.
Marty's was a record shop crammed inside Mayberry Mall in Mount Airy, N.C. -- a place that claims to be "the real Mayberry," mainly because Andy Griffith is from there. Donna Fargo is from there, too, although she was born Yvonne Vaughan (which is a real Mount Airy-sounding name; Fargo not so much). She had some country hits, including "Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A." and "Funny Face," records I didn't buy at Marty's or anywhere else (my dad had one of her songs on an eight-track, I recall).
Marty's kept all its 45s in numbered slots in a wall-sized wooden structure behind the counter. The records were stored inside the slot that corresponded with their positions on the Cash Box Top 100. So, if you wanted "The Rubberband Man" by the Spinners, you could look it up on the chart that hung by the counter and just say to the clerk, "Number 12, please."
His Sharona not to be
Between 1976 and 1981, I bought dozens of records at Marty's. I got E.L.O.'s "Sweet Talking Woman" on cool purple vinyl. I can still see the familiar Atlantic label, with its giant "A," bearing "Le Freak" by Chic. I really wanted "My Sharona" by the Knack, but the record sleeve had a woman with a see-through T-shirt on it, and I knew my mother would throttle me if she saw I'd bought something indecent with my apple-picking money.
I wrote down every song from Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" radio programs in 1978 and '79. I bought my favorites at Marty's -- from familiar oldies such as Foreigner's "Double Vision," Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" and the Village People's "Y.M.C.A." to songs that barely got out of the 30s such as Dan Hartman's "Instant Replay," Rick James' "You and I" and Foxy's "Get Off" (which did not set off mom alarm bells for me the way the Knack did).
I believe that each record cost, coincidentally, 99 cents. Before you start thinking that downloading is such a hot deal, remember that 45s had an A-side AND a B-side, so that a "We Are the Champions"/"We Will Rock You" purchase was a better deal than "Crank That (Soulja Boy)."
When I hit my teens, I moved on to albums and the Columbia Record Club -- "12 albums for a penny!" I still bought a lot of music at Marty's, but my appetite for 45s abated. I do not remember the last 45 I bought. I remember rummaging around Dickson's Records and Tapes for old 45s around 1986, maybe a purchase of a limited release in '87, but that would have been about it.
The single's the thing
Kids don't buy records today, we all know that. Music stores are going the way of municipal horse troughs. The music business is singles-driven, but the singles reside in mp3 files and not in numbered slots.
Other than the technology, this era is similar to the 1950s and early '60s. Back then, albums were mostly filler, consisting of just a couple of good songs and lots of fluff. Hmmm, that sounds familiar. Then the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Velvet Underground and hosts of artists turned the album into the true artistic statement.
Maybe a revolution like that is around the corner.
If it isn't, I'll still be glad that I came to musical maturity when I did, in the golden age of record stores, 45s and LPs. I can still see sexy Sharona on that sleeve and remember the pink pig on the RSO label. I hope some kid today is experiencing the same thrill of buying music that I had. Being the hard-bitten cynic, though, I doubt that 30 years from now we'll see a slew of nostalgic essays about the good ol' days of buying a song on the computer. Maybe we will.
Marty's is long gone, but I still have some of those old records. Long after today's song files have been deleted from the cultural hard drive, those 45s will still be around, still sparking memories.
