A Personal Journey Through The Vinyl Record Stores Of The Southern United States

I recently completed a three week, 2,500 mile road trip from Atlanta, Georgia to Athens, Nashville, Memphis, Clarksdale, Jackson, New Orleans, Lafayette and Austin.

The original intent of the trip was a musical pilgrimage to many of the places I had read and heard about since I started buying vinyl records when I was ten years old but given I am a vintage vinyl record dealer I inevitably ended up visiting vinyl record stores along the way.

It was an experience to visit Wuxtry Records in Athens, Georgia at 197 E. Clayton St.
Athens GA 30601-2702 the store where Peter Buck was working when he first met Michael Stipe.  They would go on later to form REM with Mike Mills who lived on the same street as Stipe.  The store itself was opened in 1976 and has a massive stock of vintage vinyl covering all genres and despite spending two hours in there I barely scratched the surface.  The store is located close to the main campus of the University of Georgia where no doubt much of their used stock comes from as students start to run out of cash at the end of a semester and sell off their vinyl record collections.

The vast majority of the vinyl stock is vintage although they do carry some new vinyl, particularly those released by local bands.

Criminal Records, 1154 Euclid Ave NE A, Atlanta stocked more new vinyl than vintage and were more akin to Waterloo Records in Austin in that respect.  Situated in what I can only describe as the Bohemian neighbourhood of Little Five Points in Atlanta surrounded by tattoo parlours and vintage clothing shops the store has been around for decades having moved from Florida in the Seventies and is very well established in the city.  The vintage stock was a bit of a mixed bag with many of the records clearly not inspected or rated so caveat emptor!

Next it was on to Nashville and obligatory visits to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum and the Johnny Cash museum.  If I am being honest Nashville was a disappointment.  The main drag seems to be full of souvenir and t-shirt stores or stores selling cowboy boots, “Buy One Pair, Get Two Pairs Free”, which I duly did.  As for vinyl record stores I did find Fond Object Records, 1313 McGavock Pk, Nashville, TN 37216 which is a small store combined with a vintage clothing business next door and now owned by a guy from London.  I was surprised to find a Richard Jobson solo album from the 1980s, frontman of Scottish post-punk band The Skids. I have never seen a copy of this in Scotland before and it was only $10.

 

The store has a section of new releases by local bands – ‘Local Jams’ – and the other customers who came in when I was there came for those albums. Fond Object seem to be the main Nashville outlet for local Indie band recordings.

My next stop in Nashville was Vinyl Tap Wax & Drafts, 2038 Greenwood Ave.
Nashville, TN 37206.  A great concept! A vinyl record store combined with a craft beer pub and burger joint. Even at 6pm on a Sunday evening the place was jammed.
I loved the beer cup and bottle holders that were an integral part of the record racks –  you can literally have a beer as you browse through the records which I thought was a great idea although I was not so sure about customers looking at expensive records of mine when they had a glass or bottle of beer in their hands.  The only downside is you have to be over 21 to enter which must limit their customer base.

I spoke to the manager and he said that since they opened the store it has become a place for local vinyl fans and musicians to hang out. The store has tables and comfy couches with free music papers and magazines for customers to read and is the closest thing I have yet seen to what I had planned to open in Edinburgh in 2015/16 – a vinyl record store with an Italian coffee shop and music-related art gallery that would have also been a hub for vinyl fans and musos to hang out in.

Both the bar and vinyl store were busy when I was there and one helps support the other financially which is why more stores like this are opening in the UK.  All vinyl, no CDs.  The manager said there is no interest in CDs from his regular customers. If they want digital they stream as they don’t see that CDs have any integral value whereas they view vinyl LPs as artefacts.  I found half a dozen excellent blues Chess Masters which were very reasonably priced and were in very good condition.

Jack White’s Third Man Records studio and store 623 7th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37203 was the highlight of my visit to Nashville.  A 15 minute walk from downtown and specifically located by Jack in a deprived neighbourhood to help economic regeneration.
The store was quite small but includes various era jukeboxes and the famous 1940s recording booth that Jack has had people like Neil Young go in to and play. The booth records directly onto acetate so you get a finished record at the end of the recording.
All vinyl was new as you would expect and featured Jack’s own Third Man Records imprint. There was also a wide ranging stock of blues, rock’n roll and country, mainly artists who have directly influenced Jack’s playing.

The store was jammed with people lining up outside to get in. Only purchase I made was a double LP of The White Stripes sessions for John Peel, the famous UK DJ. Cost new was about 25% less than what I would have paid for it in Scotland and was for my own collection, not resale.  Always the challenge of the vintage vinyl record dealer, buying stock which is intended for the business but ends up in your own collection.

My final stop in Nashville was The Groove, 1103 Calvin Ave, Nashville, TN 37206.  Owned by two guys who used to work in Marketing the store has a huge vintage vinyl stock! I could easily have spent half a day in there going through it all.  I found six 1960s and early 1970s blues albums in excellent condition for between $10 and $20. Despite only spending about $90 the two owners who were both working behind the counter threw in a free tote bag when they heard I was collecting them.  Groove also stocked a large range of vintage prerecorded cassettes which have been making a comeback for collectors, certainly in Scotland.  The largest section in the store was rock, followed by R&B, jazz, country then blues.  New vinyl was very reasonably priced at between $15 and £20.  Again the used vintage vinyl is not graded the buyer has to do that so take your time to check the condition of the records before you buy them.

After Nashville I made the relatively short journey to Memphis.  After visiting Graceland – has to be done by any music fan regardless of age or musical preferences – I spent some time downtown on Beale Street, officially designated by the US Congress as the “Home Of The Blues”, but was disappointed at the lack of record stores and the preponderance of tacky t-shirt and souvenir stores so no vinyl record purchases in Memphis I’m afraid.

I had always wanted to visit Clarksdale, the home of the Delta Blues and close to the famous crossroads where Robert Johnson supposedly did his pact with the devil.  Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Arts, 252 Delta Avenue, Clarksdale, MS 38614 is an excellent specialist blues record store, but what was surprising is this is the only record store in town.  Great collection of new blues vinyl, mainly reissues and a lot of releases I had not seen before. The owner Roger Stolle is another refugee/escapee from big corporate life(there are quite a few of us around) and is a blues expert.  He is involved in promoting an annual blues festival in Clarksdale every April.

There were more CDs than vinyl and a lot of custom Cat Head logo merchandise for sale – t-shirts, posters, stickers but no tote bags. What I bought was packaged in heavy duty brown bags with Cat Head logo stickers on the side.  At the last vinyl record fair I did in Scotland there were a lot of enquiries about more obscure blues releases – originals and reissues – so I bought about 15 new albums here.

I had been to New Orleans for a weekend when I lived in Palo Alto, California in the Nineties and was looking forward to a return visit.  It’s a fantastic music city with live bands playing morning, noon and night which combined with great Cajun food makes it a must visit for anyone coming to the USA.  I spent most of my time hanging out in the French Quarter and going to a free music festival in the park near the coastline.

Skully’z Recordz, 907 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, LA 70116-3120 is the only record store on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street but was tiny.  None of the used vinyl had been cleaned or graded which was not good.  I found a really nice Cocteau Twins 12″ single for $10.  The owner had a rack of discounted Record Store Day releases going back as far as 2015, 50% off. I bought 5. We all know the dangers of over-ordering RSD stock or ordering releases our customer base don’t want to buy.

I know there are other bigger and better vinyl record stores in New Orleans but I was on vacation at this point in my trip and didn’t have time to get to any of them.

My final stop before flying to El Paso was Austin, a city I had spent several weeks in during the Spring of 2018.  I only had a two days there this time and only had time to revisit two vinyl record stores, Antone’s and Waterloo Records.
As I found when I was in Austin earlier this year Antone’s Record Store, 2928 Guadalupe St #101, Austin, TX 78705 is a great store for vintage vinyl.  I spent two and a half hours in here and bought around 50 albums.  Mike Buck, former drummer with The Fabulous Thunderbirds works here. The store is a spin-off from Antone’s Blues Club – there is a smaller record store inside the club – and has a huge Texas blues section. This is a genre I was asked about at the last record fair in Scotland so it was great to pick-up stock here.  Despite the number of albums I bought they wouldn’t give me a discount although to be fair their pricing was very reasonable.

 
No shortage of used vinyl collections coming in to the store, that’s the benefit of being located in Austin and close to the University of Texas in Austin.  I found out when I was in the store that Jimmie Vaughan was playing Antone’s that night and managed to buy one of the last remaining tickets. Great gig!
Waterloo Records, 600 N Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78703 has by far the largest stock of new vinyl releases I had encountered on my trip.  The staff I spoke to were certainly friendlier than the guys I spoke to when I was here in the Spring – they seemed to think they were doing their customers a favour stocking releases they didn’t personally like.  Clearly had watched High Fidelity far too many times!

Although they don’t have a lot of vintage vinyl I did find two 1970s Zappa releases and The Who’s Live At Leeds in excellent condition. Also found releases by Scottish bands like The Proclaimers for $5.  I bought several new releases and estimate I can still make c.35% profit back in Scotland on new vinyl I buy at US prices.

The store has started a Happy Hour on Tuesday evenings – which confusingly lasts from 7pm until closing time – when you can get a 10% reduction on anything you buy.

 

So that was it for my 3 week road trip.  Next it was on to El Paso and All That Music, a superb vintage vinyl record store which I will write about in my next blog…and remember, you can never have enough vinyl!