Top Five Legendary Dealers In Your Area Of All Time

esskay

-Hello-
OK-so not counting stores/shops-meaning record show dealers/private dealers. Who are your top five people of all time for the quality of their records. Mine were all based out of the So Cal/Arizona area at one time. Please chime in.

In no particular order.

Leon Leavitt-warehouse in back of house was like chocalate factory in Willy Wonka-paid for titles but so many nice things in jazz/funk/soul/latin/etc-Justin & Anthony shared in the wealth-RIP Leon

Mostafa (PCC)-so ahead of his time with great LPs-they went on & on-sealed things for days-multiple Weldon Nodlews-blah blah blah

Ray Miller-moved to the area for awhile from Baltimore-always great finding things on wantlists-very fair on trades/cash for LPs also

Kamau/Sam/Eric Contingent (PCC/Buena Park/Finyl Vinyl)-well entrenched in LA South Central area, Roadium, etc for years-always had heat back in the day

George Bonilla-LATIN!-nuff said

Rockadelic

1) John Taylor - To my knowledge John was the first used record dealer in Texas and possibly the world as he sold used 78's to his Arthur Murray Dance Studio students in the 50's. He eventually became one of the biggest dealers of 45's, 78's and LP's with three houses completely full. He was a mandatory stop for all overseas dealers and collectors from the 1960's on. I'll post a story about my first visit with him in the Record Digging thread in the near future. He was still dancing well into his 90's and up until his death. A truly nice man who in my mind is the King of all record dealers.....he's the guy that Tefteller and his ilk got their start with.....His son Richard has carried on to a much smaller degree with his "John's Boy" mailing lists.

2) Les Harris - Out of San Antonio Les was a big player in the early Goldmine magazine days with massive ads of quality LP's. Has faded away after some nasty bouts with Ebay.

3) Leonard Lowe - My favorite dealer of all-time even though he rarely ever had more than 100 records at any given time. Knew psych music inside out and turned up some crazy stuff. Was homeless at times and would never miss an ARC Show taking a bus from Dallas with an armful of records. Got my first copy of The Index from him. RIP

4) Keith Kolby - A veteran Country musician who played with some of the big names in the 50's & 60's Keith specialized in C&W vinyl and had a big customer base in Fort Worth. Had accumulated a lot of records over the years and anything besides Country was cheap. Had a Flea Market booth and eventually a store.....after he passed away his wife Donna placed all his records in a guitar shop and on my first dive in I turned up some crazy stuff.

5) Gene Haffner(sic?) - Gene worked for Ross Perot and made a pile of cash. He dealt records while here in Dallas, retired young and rich and moved to St. Louis where he opened the Record Exchange stores. I go up to see him every chance I get and always score big......another super nice dude.

DCarfagna

Rockadelic said:

Gene Haffner(sic?)

Jean Haffner

discos_alma

Great thread

esskay said:

George Bonilla-LATIN!-nuff said

Chr*s has told me some facemelting stories about hitting this dude up. Sealed Ray & His Court for $5 anyone?

spelunk

The most legendary Bay Area dealers are before my time, but if anyone here knows the story of the record store (pretty sure it was Bayview Records?) in Albany on Solano Avenue that Beni B and Josh D used to buy 45s at right before it closed, I'd love to hear about that, since it's just a few blocks from where I grew up. I've asked around, but beyond "oh yeah, there was a record store there", I don't have any backstory...

Thanks for the stories Rich! Didn't know about the connection between Record Exchange and Dallas...the stores certainly are Texas sized!

discos_alma

spelunk said:

Bayview Records?

Baytown.

Pulled this from an interview w/ Mathew Africa that came up when I googled the name:

Best Digging City or Town: My favorite store of all time was Baytown Records in Albany, CA. It was just a couple of miles from where I grew up, and I used to take the bus down there every weekend and spend hours soaking up music. When I started going there my knowledge was really broad for my age, but that store gave me a Ph.D.

The owner, Mark Edmund, seemed to know everything about music and would drive all around the state accumulating stuff. His retail store was small and didn't attract much foot traffic, so I think he got by servicing foreign dealers and obsessive collectors. He had one or two little turntables set up and I'd spend all day listening to songs. Sometimes he'd lock me in the store when he had to go out!

I pulled a ton of rare stuff from that store, like 45???s by Robbie Hill's Family Affair, The Personations and Organization, The Blenders, Ltd. and James Reese & the Progressors. I also pulled LPs by Mike James Kirkland, Quinn Harris and Marvin Holmes. Nothing was ever over $10, but the most valuable thing I got was a broad and deep knowledge of soul and funk music.

Most of his stock was on 45???s, which he kept organized by artist and label. He would have normal stock alphabetized by artist, but the back stock was sorted by label. I would pull a stack of records I didn't know based on titles or artists' names???you know, guess which ones would be funky and then listen to them one by one. When I found something hot, I could then go to the back stock and pull out other things on the same record label. It was like following hyperlinks. These days it's simple to get information about music and the inter-relations between artists or regional styles, but back then you had to piece it all together yourself. His store was an amazing resource.

Mark passed away one day in 1992 and the store never re-opened.

LaserWolf

1) Recordmonger.
2) Tefteller
3) Craig Moerer
4) When I moved back here in '90 I found Recorded Memories in the phone book.
It was an old guys house. The living room had record bins. Mostly sealed cutouts from the mid 70s. The old man mostly stayed upstairs where he made cassettes of big band and easy listening music for background at a few restaurants around town. I dealt with his wife mostly. I think I was the only guy to buy from them. After I emptied the bins they would bring more records out of storage. I visited them every other month for years. I bought tons of Groove Merchant, and Prestige/Fantasy stuff, multiple copies of Headless Heroes and other good stuff. Eventually it got down to a thousand+ records, which I really didn't need, but bought from them at salvage price so they could quit moving them around. In the 60s into the early 70s they had a record store on Hawthorne, but closed it when the hippies moved in. No rock records.
5) Shhhhhhhh.

discos_alma

I'm too new to tha game to make a list of the most legendary, but here are the (first) names of the dealers that are firmly part of my local record experience.

Shoji
Tony
Art
Roberto
Bernard