By Ben Marks — Have you ever woken up on the couch in the middle of the night to find yourself staring at a black-and-white movie from the 1930s flickering on the TV? If so, your slumber may have been gently stirred by the film’s melancholy soundtrack. Drifting between dreamstate and consciousness, at first you may think you recognize the tinny strains of a slow Argentine tango, but then you discern a melody suggesting a Chopin nocturne, albeit one that’s been tuned to an even gloomier minor key of an...

Secrets of the Blue Note Vault: Rediscovering Monk, Blakey, and Hancock

By Dean Schaffer — When I was a jazz DJ in Philadelphia, Blue Note was always my favorite label. Naturally I had a lot of jazz-musician friends, and many of them told me that they’d played in a lot of Blue Note sessions that were never released. I started to keep a list of these sessions in a little notebook, and in 1973 I started banging on the door of Blue Note to find someone to show it to. My inquiries fell on deaf ears until 1975, when I met a guy named Charlie Lourie, who had just joined Blue Note. He...

Your Turntable Is Not Dead: Inside Jack White’s Vinyl Record Empire

By Dean Schaffer — When the White Stripes got signed, Jack White created Third Man Records as an insurance policy. With the White Stripes and, later on, Whirlwind Heat and the Raconteurs, the bands only licensed their music to record companies—the labels didn’t really own it. So in case things went sour, Third Man was a way for Jack and the bands to be able to maintain ownership of their masters and their records. You hear so many stories about that damning phrase, “in perpetuity,” on contracts. Jack was...

Stephen M. H. Braitman on the British Invasion, from the Beatles to the Sex Pistols

By Dean Schaffer — I was a Hollywood kid. My father was a TV and radio editor in the San Fernando Valley, and he allowed me to do my first writing to review concerts and shows for the newspaper. But as a younger kid, I really hated rock ’n’ roll music and pop music, and I disliked the Beatles and all that. I have a younger sister who was a total Beatlemaniac. She started getting into the ’60s scene, but I was more influenced at that time by my father’s interest in classical music. I was, however,...

Spinning at 78 RPM with Record Collector Gary Herzenstiel

By Maribeth Keane — I have about 20,000 records in my collection at my house and another 7,000 at another house. I keep them in a room in the basement that has to be humidity controlled with very little humidity at all because mold will grow on the records. I liked vocals when I was young, and I used to play my mother’s records at 78 rpm because they were mostly 45. That way, I couldn’t understand the vocals anymore, and it made the tune very upbeat and really fast. I just thought to myself, “I wonder what is...

Record Collector Ted Staunton On His Favorite 78s

By Marty Weil — Ted Staunton was born in England, but now lives an active retired lifestyle in Vancouver, Canada. Ted has an outstanding collection of 78 rpm record labels. We talked about his collection, how he got started, and what excites him about the hobby during this recent telephone interview. : When did you become interested in collecting 78 rpm record labels? : My interest in 78 rpm labels grew out of another hobby, that of singing in a barbershop quartet. Listening to the sounds of quartets...