How Far Will I Go?

To find a record store

My friend John is a lawyer from Greenville who works now as a public defender in Walhalla, SC. Walhalla is one of those quaint southern towns that is on the road to everywhere but reached most often on intentional journeys. In other words, it’s not really anyone’s idea of a destination point, but once you see it, you’re liable to stop if for no other reason than the Steak House Cafeteria’s southern fried chicken.

I think the Steak House Cafeteria owner is originally from Iran, which makes this even sweeter for people like me. I love cafeterias and I love my wife, and don’t get me started on fried chicken.

Walhalla leads to the mountains, too, and resorts like Cashiers and Highlands, NC, offer beautiful stays, though no fried chicken or...

In the opposite direction, and again, accessible in so many ways that it seems as if someone planned this though no one much would ever tell you to go there, is Seneca, SC. Unlike Walhalla, Seneca’s “downtown” features boarded up former storefronts and a few strip malls featuring “antiques.” I hear there’s a good Middle Eastern restaurant there, too, but I didn’t divert my path to find it, since my path was focused on a certain business, a most certain record store named

Yesterdaze.

It’s one of those places that amazes upon first entering and turning every which way trying to decide where to begin. Posters, albums displayed on the walls, and maybe a bit of signage from passed days of future concerts. When I walked in, the owner was engaged in buying some records from a young man who, affably enough, was describing the conditions and pressings of his records. The cashier leaned over to the guy and said,

“Don’t tell him (the owner) everything you know.”

That’s funny, because we all seem to be like-minded friends in these buy-sell-trade ventures, and yet we all know that our love for music doesn’t always square with making/getting fair deals. I never feel cheated per se, but I also know that I’m not a willing bargainer.

The owner also has a booth in an antiques store called Plunder, in Greer, SC, and meeting him there, I learned about his brick and mortar place in Seneca, which is roughly 60 miles from Greer and the pigeon flies.

Maybe I should have named this piece Farther Along, because I did wonder a bit about myself, making this solitary journey in hopes of finding what no other store might have, which at least is a more rational and mature act than when, as a boy, I thought each venue selling comic books would have radically different ware than the other. That was actually vindicated in a Magik Mart in Ft. Lauderdale, FLA, once when the store had so many back issues of The Amazing Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, that I caught up on that past year’s reading (remember when Gwen Stacy died? Do you remember how and by whom?).

True confessions about 12 cent comic books, though, are not what I’m about right now.

And what I did find in Yesterdaze might or might not have been worth the gas, depending on who any of us is.

First, to get the tease out of the way, I did pay $20 for one of the only Byrds LPs I didn’t already own, Farther Along (Columbia Limited Edition-re-release LE-10215, 1975). Their 11th LP, this was the last studio album to feature the lineup of Roger McGuinn, Gene Parsons, Skip Battin, and Clarence White. An original Byrds reunion album would follow Farther Along’s release (originally released in 1971). It’s a good album, not great, but worth a few listens as we imagine all the roads we’d take from the early 70’s on.

I know I paid too much for it, but since I was looking specifically for it and there it was…well anyway, who’ll know the difference in ten years, or tomorrow?

Next, I found several Tammy Wynette LPs I didn’t own. The one I’ll mention here is The Way To Love A Man (Epic BN-26519 1969), cause it’s the oldest Tammy album I didn’t yet own (her fourth studio release), and to offset what I paid for that Byrds reissue, this one cost only $6, is in very good+ shape and still has the original inner sleeve, for those like me who care. Produced by legendary Billy Sherrill, the title cut kills me, as do “Enough of a Woman” and “Singing My Song.” And then, as the liner notes say,

“From the heartbreak of a love that was lost comes a lesson, "‘He’ll Never Take the Place of You.’ Tammy brings a message to those searching for love, or, for those who have been fortunate enough to have found it and want to hold on to it…There Are So Many Ways….”

Which reminds me of a great Pride pennant waving on the lawn of a friend’s home:

“There Are So Many Ways To Be A Human.”

I’m so happy.

And not to be outdone by Tammy, Connie Smith released quite a number of LPs in the 60s and 70s and at Yesterdaze I found an original pressing of her second album, Connie Smith (RCA Victor LSP 3341, 1965), still in its shrink wrap. Featuring songs “The Other Side of You,” “I’m Ashamed Of You,” and “Darling, Are You Ever Coming Home,” the album plays through its heartbreak as cleanly as it must have sounded back when I was nine years old.

The oldest LP I found, for a cool $10, is George Jones/Melba Montgomery (UAL-3301) from 1963, featuring the pair singing “What’s In Our Heart,” “Until Then,” “Don’t Go,” “Now Tell Me,” and eight others. But as Heartaches By The Number: Country Music’s 500 Greatest Singles (Cantwell & Friskics-Warren, Vanderbilt Press 2003) insist, the greatest single song on this LP is “We Must Have Been Out Of Our Minds,” which placed at #93.

Oh wow. Such a clean and beautiful record.

When the cashier rang up my purchases, he said,

“You’re really going way back!”

To which the young guy trying to sell a few choice sides commented,

“There’s nothing wrong with way back!”

To which I replied,

“No there isn’t. It’s just another way of getting farther along.”

So this journey was worth it, I think. The fried chicken, the companionship, and a new store to consider.

Now, the owner did try to sell me a Roger McGuinn. autographed copy of Sweetheart of the Rodeo, an album I truly love. He had it listed at $80 but offered it for $60.

I have a new copy, so I’ll leave this as a cliffhanger: what do you think I did?

Thanks for reading, as always!