Baby Don't Ya Do It (Don't Break My Heart (Marvin Gaye) 1968
Nineteen sixty-nine was the rockiest but the most transformative year of all. Rosie broke up with me because I was butting into a fight she was having with her ex-boyfriend. I wisely stayed out of it for months, but then took some idiotic advice from a car mechanic I knew who told me I had to "put my foot down". Rosie over-reacted and told me she was not down with having another jealous boyfriend. That was it. I couldn't believe it.
I only went out with Rosie for about four months, but I really felt good with her. She was a big voluptuous gal, easy going, smart, and kind. I took it very hard when we broke up and it took me about a year to get over her. But this experience made me want to know much more about blues music, because that's what I had - the blues. Besides the break-up, I had decided, against my parents' wishes, to drop out of college. So, for the first time in 12 years, I wasn't going back to school in the fall. Over the next year, I threw myself into working in music stores.
Music Extravaganza Music Store
Jamaica Avenue was five blocks from my house. I went down there to shop for clothes, shoes, and music. On my way home one day, I noticed one of the shops had been taken over as a music store. Naturally I stopped in to see what was going on. The store was not far from Jamaica High School, which had a heavy Black population, so the shop largely reflected the tastes of the students. The guy who owned the shop was friendly, but he did not seem like the kind of guy who was interested in blasting Bold, Soul Sister into the street. I stopped by and talked to the guy about music a couple of times a week and he began to talk to me about the business. The store had good traffic, but I could tell he was not at home with having 10 to 15 high school kids pawing through his stock every day while pushing each other, screaming, and carrying on. He began to put out feelers to see if I might like to work there. Then one day I came in and he asked me if I would like to run the store for a week while he was away. At first, I was pretty scared, but over the next two days, we went over all my responsibilities and it seemed more manageable. Once he gave me his phone number to call in case something happened, I felt like I could do it. I really wanted a job in music.
I managed the store for a week and nothing bad happened. While I was in the store when times were slow, I started matching the labels to the artists. I knew all the rhythm and blues people and their labels, but I had to learn the labels of the British rockers like Cream, Led Zeppelin and The Who. One time my father was coming up the hill from work. I saw him and invited him into the store. There weren't many people around, so he could size up the store without drawing attention to himself. He looked at me, uncomprehending. Here he thought I was going to college to be some kind of professional, but instead I dropped out of school and was working in a record store playing music he couldn't stand and with people in the store he could not relate to. As it turned out, I worked at this store for six months full-time.
Visiting Rivoli Records
In the meantime, on the weekends I began to go into Manhattan, looking around for blues music. I had also started reading a couple of books about the history of the blues. In 1969, I was aware of the anti-war movement and the Black Panthers, and would travel to Greenwich Village, trying to plug into something, searching for mysteries without any clues, as Bob Seger would sing. Then I would take the E train four stops and get off at Times Square. I gravitated to the music stores, including Sam Goody's.
One Saturday night I stumbled on a store on 47th and Broadway called Rivoli Records. Ray Barretto's Latin music blared outside the store. I entered the store, trying to get the lay of the land. One guy up close to the register whom I came to know as "Big George" was holding court. He looked like Bluto except he had sunglasses on. I zeroed in on the blues section of the store and pulled out an album by Ten Years After. I walked up to George and said I'd like to by this. I handed George the record cover. He takes the cigar out of his mouth, draws in saliva as if readying himself for an attack. "You don't wanna listen to this sh*t. Lemme show ya some real blues." He lumbers down the aisle and pulls out a record by Sonny Boy Williamson, jams it into my hands and says, "Now dat's the Blues!" George seems to have very little interest in selling me the record. He just wants to play it for me. We listen to it, then he pulls out more records which we listen to in between customers. It was hard to judge George as a salesperson. When he liked a song, he would blare out "YEAHHH", scaring half the customers out of the store, especially the tourists. George was great if you knew what you wanted, but he was not good at reeling people in if they were just browsing.
Our Saturday nights became a habit. We'd listen to music, order some take-out food and then about 1am he'd close the store. I would drive him home to the Bronx. It was the least I could do for the education I was getting. The more I came into the store the more I thought maybe I could work there. Rivoli Records was a sub-division of a larger store, named Colony Records. This was a shop that was so deep in stock people would come from other parts of the world to buy this music. In fact, in later years I read an article about Michael Jackson slipping into Colony Records when he was in town. He would give a secret knock to alert the staff he was there.
The 2 music labels like Atlantic, Bang Records, and ABC were all within walking distance of Rivoli. In fact, many of the people who worked at Colony had their own small bands and were hoping to be discovered by the record companies. Some of the musical artists used to come by and give those of us working there tickets to the Apollo Theatre. My point is that all the people working at Colony and Rivoli were extremely knowledgeable about music. Besides Big George, there were two other people I came to know and eventually work with. Freddie was an older guy who had a comb-over and whose expertise was big bands. Freddie hated rhythm and blues and Latin jazz and his thin skin was easily irritated by Big George who liked to escalate. The other guy was Little George. Little George must have been about 5 foot five inches, a wiry, cynical Black guy who was in charge of the 45s and the rhythm and blues section. Little George worked during the day so if there was an opening for me, it would be the night shift from 6pm to 1am. At some point I asked Big George if I could work there. He said he had to talk to Turk, the owner of Colony Records. I was introduced to Turk and Turk said I needed to know the labels better. He told me to go work at a wholesale music store and to come back in 6 months.
Image of Colony Records, NYC
Working at a wholesale music store (Raymar Records)
I found a job picking orders at Raymar records which was only a couple of miles from where I lived. Our job at the store was to pick orders for music stores, and the orders would be delivered by a driver. Most of the guys in the store were hippies into rock and folk music. Not my cup of tea, but I did learn more record labels and I was turned on to FM radio which I never heard before. I continued to go to Rivoli Records every Saturday night.
I get hired by Rivoli Records (the best job interview I ever had)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
