My insane buying of 45 rpm records began in about 1960 and continues unabated to this day. Just last Sunday, I dropped significant dough at the Orange County Record Show in Buena Park and hung out with some of the strangest guys you’ll likely ever meet – and when I say guys, I mean males; it’s the rare woman who collects vinyl at this level.
An early recipient of my college day funds (at a quarter a pop) was a Long Beach cop named W.W. Braden, who dealt out-of-print 45s to local teenagers out of his kitchen on 28th St. near Clark Ave. Bill found out about Braden and told me, so every Saturday morning, Bill and I and a few other teens would arrive at his house and plow through boxes of 45s he’d sell for a quarter apiece. I got some great records this way.
Bill loved country music, so he kept these for himself. Many were the times I’d be visiting junk shops on Anaheim St. and spot Braden’s black and white cop car near the back door, where, as Bill and I liked to joke, he’d be giving the clerks a song and dance about donating these records to homes in the area and would instead walk out in full uniform, boxes on records tucked under each arm.
A retired Long Beach cop whom I met much later on well remembered Braden, whom they gave the nickname “the sheriff,” because he reminded them of how law was enforced before modern policing methods – and when I say modern, I mean 1960s modern.
Braden was last seen tending to a 45s shop at Stearns and Lakewood Blvd, after having divorced his wife and moving on. I hear he died, but my collecting bug was just getting started.
His was not the only “hit and run” record shop in Long Beach. There was an older guy, whose name I have long since forgotten who’d occupy a store front, such as in the small set of businesses on Seventh and Redondo a few doors down from where the late lamented Bistro did business. He’d pay rent for the first month or two, then continue selling records for the few later months it took to evict him. He’d hire local record fiends like “Blind Leon” Alguire, – who was almost sightless – or another guy named Bob, who carried on the tradition into the 1980s, opening shops he’d call Music Minus, dealing out old vinyl. I recall one at Tenth and Redondo.
Blind Leon was great. He was roommate for my very good friend, blues fan, harbormaster and record dealer and record journal publisher, Jim Philbrook in a back house on Seventh St. near Temple and inside, was vinyl and shellac everywhere. It was Blind Leon’s goal to acquire every Lightning Hopkins LP ever issued, which would total well over 100 on almost that many different labels. I think he came close.
I thought enough of Leon to recommend him as an advisor on the KLON board, representing the disability community – why not have someone on board that actually had blues expertise? There’s a novelty. He joined and served until he and Jim got into it and Leon was gone.
Leon was a hit and run record dealer, last seen in a store on Broadway near Walnut. I heard rumors he was about to close, so I went down to pick up records and paper to even out a debt he owed me. Last heard from in Eugene, Oregon. I’ve tried to reach him to tell him Jim passed away in ‘07, but haven’t been able to… oh well, the news isn’t good anyhow.
I recall how he and Jim picked up 600,000 45s for a few hundred bucks from a cut out record guy, meaning he dealt in bottom feeder material, except there was always something good and a few great within.
These loosey/goosey record dealers weren’t the first, by any means. Long Beach has always had record shops: VIP, Zed’s in the 70s and beyond and the legendary Moreys, Humphreys and others in the 1950s.
In the 1950s through the ‘70s, there were a variety of shops that sold 45s; Wallich’s Music City in Lakewood and Wenzel’s Music Town in Downey became two of the favorites. This was the time of the four and eight-track tape, so Wenzel’s would record your old 45s onto this new technology. Employees at Wallich’s, across the street from Lakewood Center at Candlewood called them “bootleggers.”
Wallich’s had listening booths where customers could audition records and thieves could squirrel these same records in their shirts or other hiding places. Wallich’s also put out weekly Top 50 lists of best sellers. Later I came across a stash of these from 1959 through about 1967 – some weeks were missing – but it was fairly complete and I’m using the info in a book I’m writing about the rock and roll / r&b side of pretty much a complete history of all 45s recorded by L.A. area acts. Right now, I’m working on the late 50s. It’s slow work, but fun work.
Getting back to the 60s: One day at a thrift store in Norwalk in about 1968, I met George Moore from Garden Grove. Every weekend he’d have a mini-record show at his garage. He told me about the Westdale Savings Record Show in West L.A., a short and convenient drive up the 405.
Married less than five years to Sylvia and not yet a father, I took a drive up to West L.A. on the just-completed 405 and that trip also changed my life – a lot of that went on in those days. In 1970 and ’71, my family came along, but that didn’t stop the record shopping – by any means. That’s why my daughters, Heather and Shea, know most of the lyrics and generally who sang the great songs of the 50s and 60s, while others of their generation wonder how and why.