Customer Reviews

Old Rare New: The Independent Record Shop

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Emma Petit's book has been described by the NYT as a "love poem" to the record shops epitomized in Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity". To the record (vinyl or CD) collector - part of the joy of a business trip was to browse the bins of the local record store - and in many instances local did include the various branches of Tower - in Bellevue, San Francisco, Cambridge, New Orleans and Chicago, where before the Internet those long sought after items could be found. And after a business dinner paying full price didn't seem so bad especially when there might be a soulmate to talk to - either another customer or sales clerk - who would insist that if you were interested in A, then surely B,C and D had to be heard. These stores are now gone together with the ritual of "flipping the bins". Emma Petit captures some of this history in her book together with the fanatical - sometimes lovable - but always eccentric - proprietors and the equally bizarre collectors. However, despite a comprehensive listing at the end of the book, she and her travel companions appear not to have visited the world's best soul/latin store - Dusty Groove in Chicago - available on the Net for those who are interested.

This book would've received 5 stars except for the now typically sloppy copyediting from Black Dog Publishing - the book group that confused the legendary Rick(y) Nelson with a Ricky Wilson in their atrocious history of the UK Ace label. In the present book there are several examples of mangled grammar (and there is not a lot of text) and, on page 86, the first album cover picture does not support the caption (Mike Westbrook is not Kim Fowley)