Crate Diving in Modern America

You never know until you look for vintage vinyl

I lament the decline and fall of western civilization’s most iconic capitalist form, the old-fashioned department store. Or if not a lamentation, then this scream:

If they have to die, why doesn’t someone clue me in so that I can be there to snap up all the cool, still-sealed vinyl that lingers in those old bins in a department usually tucked somewhere near Notions and Ladies Undergarments (and that’s what memory will do for you)?

This is my imagination talking at least, for as I scour thrift stores and my local record salvations, I keep finding records that nobody wanted, or at least not enough of us wanted them, though maybe we really did back in our high school years but wondered if our cool factor averages would take the kind of hits that all New York Yankee hitters are suffering these days — and no real lamentations there cause I’m truly tired of over-priced ballers popping out to the shortstop with runners in scoring position or ending potential big innings with the dreaded GIDP.

Back in 1972, for instance, no one could have talked me into spending my hard-earned grass-cutting $2.98 for Billy Paul’s 360 Degrees of Billy Paul (PIR KZ-31793 1972), and not because I didn’t love the big hit “Me And Mrs. Jones,” for I did, truly, and it helped that one of my peers, a girl named Diane who sported a modest Afro and wire-rimmed circled glasses, kept whispering to me that she LOVED Billy Paul. And I thought…well you know what I thought in those Alabama high school days of seemingly everything being forbidden.

So when I saw the album yesterday glaring at me from Horizon Records’ “new/used” bin, and even though they wanted $15 for it, I didn’t pause, and even then I didn’t know it was still sealed, never-before been played. And I swear, he does a killer version of Carole King’s “It’s Too Late,” proving that crossovers were neither too far nor too late for all of us back then if we could have gotten out of our own way and stopped moving neighborhoods just because a little local color was moving in (“People moving out, people moving in…” how I loved that one too).

Paul also kills it on “I’m Just a Prisoner,” but it’s only taken me 50 years to hear it. Gamble and Huff produced the album, and of course you’ll want to hear Paul’s version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” too.

Something/Anything else: in one of those rain song prompts over at Plethora of Pop, I wrote about my favorite rain song, Brook Benton’s “Rainy Night in Georgia,” and afterward I wondered what was so wrong with me that I didn’t/never actually own the record? Now, on this rainy day, I’m writing to you that I finally looked in the B’s over at Horizon and found The Brook Benton Anthology (Rhino RNFP-71497, 1986) at a cost of $8.00. It, too, has never been opened, and while reissued anthology style records aren’t always my thing, the two discs here offer such a retro helping of Benton’s long years in recording that I feel more than justified. Consider: you get his duets with Dinah Washington from 1960: “Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes” and “A Rockin’ Good Way [to Mess Around and Fall In Love”])).

And sure, you also get yet another version of “My Way,” and the Joe South cover “Don’t It Make You Want to Go Home,” but in the end, “Rainy Night in Georgia” (released in December 1969) and “Still Waters Run Deep” definitely keep pouring through my heart.

I wanna say that there’s a photo of Benton with Lesley Gore on the back, or at least I think it’s her. Cool.

Also unopened and buried back in the “You might not want one of these but they’re here anyway” bin is Crystal Gayle’s When I Dream (UA-LA858-H, 1978), which cost a mean $3.00, though if you had wanted it at K-Mart back in those olden times, it would have cost you $4.96. Including covered standards like “Cry Me a River” “I Still Miss Someone,” and “Wayward Wind,” plus “Talking in Your Sleep” and “Hello I Love You,” it’s a rich person’s vision of countrypolitan.

Richer still is Emmylou Harris’s White Shoes (WB 23961–1, 1983), that came in at the outrageous price of $5.00. Someone had truly pre-loved it, though it’s still in perfectly playable shape. And I won’t list all the tracks here because when I mention this one, it’s either make you or break you time. She covers “On the Radio” which maybe you did hear on that medium back in the late 70’s or maybe you danced to it at a club, or maybe you just wanted to. If only Donna sang on this one with Emmylou. R. Crowell plays guitars and also playing are those Elvis musicians we’re all so find of.

Quickly now for it is funny how time slips away, when Willie Nelson (happy 90th!) released his tribute to Lefty Frizzell in 1977, To Lefty From Willie (Columbia Lonestar 34695), it likely cost $3.99 at Sears, or at least that’s what the sticker that Horizon covered up with their $12.00 sticker said. But what the hell, seems like a small token to pay on the man’s b-day.

Finally, and this one is for

Steven Hale

who clued me in after the column I wrote here,

A Time For Us To Wander

Country Music, my college, and me

medium.com

that if I liked The Dillards, I might want to find The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark (A&M SP-4158 1968), and just to show that there are no coincidences in this world — only good friends with fine suggestions — the very next time I hit Horizon, I did find it. It’s in stellar shape and for only $20, you can hear Doug and Gene (with help from Bernie Leadon) take on “She Darked the Sun” and “Train Leaves Here this Mornin’” along with seven other gems.

Now as my morning is quickly leaving and I have a good dog to walk if the rainy day in Carolina lets me, I’ll leave you in this crate begging for soul salvation.