The Record Player
Sometime in the mid-fifties, when I was seven or eight years old something unusual was happening to pop music. Suddenly, we went from Doggies in the Window and Love & Marriage to Sixteen Tons and Rock Around the Clock. Elvis Presley was paid a record seventy-five thousand dollars for three performances on the Ed Sullivan Show, and the new teenage idols were Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Fats Domino and Buddy Holly, among others.
My big sister BooBoo (her real name is Roberta) is five years older than me, and so she was the perfect age to become seduced by this new cult. I dare say that I, also succumbed to this phenomenon. And although I continued to watch The Lawrence Welk Show with my parents, I would also listen to BooBoo’s records over and over and over. This new form of music was like a drug that we just couldn’t seem to get enough of.
Sometimes, we would take the bus downtown to the record store. It seemed as though we could spend hours in the record store. The owner or manager was always a clean-cut young man who wore a thin necktie, and was always extremely knowledgeable about the inventory. The records were all on the new 45 RPM format, and the cost always came out to exactly one dollar: ninety-six cents plus four cents sales tax.
But the best thing about the record store in those days, was that you could pick up one of those 45 RPM records from any pile and take it into a little booth where you could listen to it as many times as you wanted. If you decided to buy it, great. If not, no problem. Pick up another one or not, no pressure, no hassle. Buy it or don’t buy it. Of course, you never actually went home empty handed. You went there to buy music. That was the whole point. There were always several booths in the store, and very seldom did you have to wait for one to become available.
Of course, my dad couldn’t understand why anyone would pay money to listen to music when we had a perfectly good radio in the kitchen.
When I got to be a little older, I remember scraping every penny I could get my hands on to buy the two LP set of Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall. It was one of the greatest albums I had ever listened to, still is. I even rode my bike all the way up to the record store in the dark, without a light to buy it. I actually got stopped by a cop who informed me that I was required to have a light on my bike if I would be riding on major roads at night. I don’t really remember if I ever got a light on my bike.
One of the songs that Belafonte performed on that album was a rendition of Hava Nagila (a Jewish Folk song). It was, and is, the best version of that song I have ever heard. It was one of the few positive things I heard my Dad say about the music I purchased. Imagine that – Harry Belafonte (the Day-O guy) singing Hava Nagila. And with a cry in his voice, yet!
When I was in my early teens, I was home alone quite a bit when I wasn’t at school. My constant companion was an old record player from the cave man days. It had no needle. But with a pair of plyers and a straight pin, I was able to fashion a needle that actually worked (although I’m sure it wasn’t very good for the records). I became introduced to so many different kinds of music from Rock N’ Roll, to show tunes, to classical music, even some opera. I was exposed to genres that ran the gamut from Chet Atkins to Mario Lanza to The Ink Spots.
When I was in junior high school, my Dad and I were walking through Montgomery Wards one evening and we stopped to look at a record player that was on sale. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was brown and gold, and it had stereo speakers on each side that could be detached from the main body and spread out for maximum sound effect. I don’t even remember what it cost at that time, maybe fifty or sixty bucks. So, Daddy told me that if I got certain grades on my report card that semester, he would buy me the record player. And so, I worked really hard during that grading period, and I was pretty sure that I had earned the grades I needed.
On the day that report cards were coming out, Daddy and I had made arrangements to go to Montgomery Wards as soon as he got home from work that night and buy the record player. Do you remember when you got your first bike, or your first new car? I was so excited that day, until, yes, you guessed it. I came up short in one of my classes and I was devastated.
I called my dad at work when I got home from school to tell him the bad news. Daddy was very understanding, actually encouraging, and told me that if I got good grades on the next grading period, he would still buy the record player then, if it was still available.
That night when he got home from work, he still wanted us to go to Montgomery Wards, even though we wouldn’t be buying the record player. When we got to the store and went to the electronics department, I saw the record player still on display. But it had a big tag on it that said SOLD. Daddy had called up that afternoon and bought the thing with his credit card.
We took the record player home, and I promised to try to be a better student. I can’t tell you how many thousands of hours I spent listening to music in the years that followed.
I don’t believe in an afterlife, but just in case I’m wrong, the first thing I’ll do if I ever do actually get to heaven (also questionable) is to go up to my Dad and tell him just how much that meant to me. Of all the worldly possessions that I have ever owned, or ever wanted to own, that record player would be number one on the list!