for those who never gave up their turntables
I HAD TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION: “Who was the first rock band to sell a million albums?” It was on Quora and immediately seized my attention. Why? Because not only had I never thought about it, but I had never heard a record-collecting friend or a professional music writer address it. [Read more] “who was the first rock band to sell a million albums?”
IF YOU ARE A SUBSCRIBER TO THIS BLOG (Rather Rare Records) and you do not receive updates and other notifications via email from this blog, listen up! It appears that I initially misunderstood quite a few things in setting this blog up, including the subscription process and how emails are sent to subscribers. [Read more] “important: do you receive email notifications from this blog?”
THE AVID COLLECTOR was the title of my column in Pulse! magazine. Pulse! (with the annoying exclamation mark) was the in-house magazine for Tower Records that was free to every customer in every Tower store in the world! The Avid Collector was about collectible records and ran for almost two years in the early ’90s. [Read more] “are the avid collector and the avid record collector the same person?”
ARTHUR CRUDUP CAME AND WENT, placing five sides from three singles on Billboard’s national R&B chart in 1945–1946. Then the big hits stopped, although RCA Victor kept releasing his records for several years to apparently dwindling returns. His fifteen minutes of fame were over until eight years later when Elvis Presley released his first record. [Read more] “about those nasty rumors about elvis and arthur crudup”
HERE’S ANOTHER QUESTION ABOUT VINYL on Quora that distracted me from various writing projects! The question is, “What vinyl album cover empty is worth more than a mint vinyl album without the cover?” Or, as I have worded it in this article’s title: Are there albums with covers that are worth more than the records? [Read more] “are there albums where the covers are worth more than the records?”
THE AVID RECORD COLLECTOR is a column that I recently started contributing to the Sixties Music Secrets blog. The intention of the column was to address LPs released in the ’60s and subsequently deleted. Then they found their way into cut-out bins of retail record stores around the country and then, years later, found their way onto collector’s want-lists. [Read more] “are these five LPs actually rare and valuable records?”
THERE ARE A HANDFUL OF RECORDS from the ’70s that are so common among British collectors that they receive little attention from them. But they are all rather rare records outside of the UK—so rare, that most non-UK collectors have only seen them as images on the internet! [Read more] “why did rca have to export david bowie records to england in the ’70s?”
DOES JACKIE DeSHANNON belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Making an argument for her or any artist is not easy for two reasons. First, the Hall does not have any set of criteria by which fans can assess potential candidates. Each year each vote appears to be a reflection of the mood of the nominators and voters of that year. [Read more] “does jackie deshannon belong in the rock & roll hall of fame?”
I WAS NOT A FAN OF PUNK ROCK in the 1970s and ’80s. I admired the political aspect of the punk movement in the UK and the anybody-can-be-in-a-band spirit, but I didn’t connect with most of the music. (I still don’t care for most of it but have loosened up a bit with age.) [Read more] “an introduction to the punk note ideations of john yates”