Vinyl Record Memories Newsletter

The golden age of vinyl records and all things retro are the highlights of the monthly Newsletter. Writing stories about our vinyl record memories with added content from my personal collection is my way of sharing memories and keeping the oldies alive.

Issue #140 - January, 2025

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In This Issue:

• Spotlight Song of The Month.

• The Nostalgia For Vinyl Records.

• Why Has The Vinyl Record Survived?

• Collecting Vinyl Records - The Bottom Line.

• Framed Album Cover Art of The Month.

• Be My Baby - Remembering Ronnie Spector.

• Winter Sunset - For Our Classic Car Lovers.

• You Might Also Like These Stories. Back In The Day.

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Country Doo Wop Spotlight Song of The Month.

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The Everly Brothers - Walk Right Back

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This month DJ Ned Ward and his Country Doo Wop Show joined Vinyl Record Memories in a salute to the all American Jukebox. Ned, along with his producer, Mr. Barney, continue to give listeners great oldies music including this classic, Walk Right Back, selected as our Spotlight Song of The Month.

The American made Jukebox. It was found almost anyplace people gathered to eat or drink - in soda shops and pizza parlors, diners, restaurants, and truck stops. For a nickel, then a dime and finally a quarter, people could play if they were willing to pay.

Low key corner bars are romantic just like old pickup trucks are romantic, cherished as a symbol for a certain way of life along with the brightly colored Jukebox in the corner. And as teenagers, how many dates were made at the malt shops when duck-tails and poni-tails would gather around the jukebox waiting to make a selection.

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The Nostalgia for Vinyl Record Memories.

Collecting Vinyl Records and Album Cover Art takes on a different form for many of us who have that passion those in today's digital world may not fully understand.

How would you rather spend your evening? Listening to vinyl records with your favorite lady or by yourself with a pair of iPods stuck in your ear staring endlessly off into the universe.

The Vinyl Record is your partner in great sound. Nothing in this universe sounds as good as a perfectly made vinyl record, recreating the sound in exactly the same manner as the artist wanted you to hear it.

As we listen to this restored 1956 Wurlitzer Jukebox it's not hard to get lost in time with wonderful memories, when as teens, we would meet after school, drink cherry cokes, and listen to vinyl records on a Jukebox. This Wurlitzer is a model 2000 in High Fidelity with updated Pickering Magnetic stereo cartridge, and is our Country Doo Wop Spotlight Song of The Month.

Those were fond memories, playing this great Everly Brothers song on a soda shop "Jukebox," picking out the song with your girl and watching the record begin to play.

What a great combo. A soda shop, cherry cokes, a Jukebox, and your girl friend. And to top it off...3 plays for a quarter!

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Why Has The Vinyl Record survived?

If you have been around music long enough you have seen the many different formats introduced for your listening pleasure.

We have seen Reel to Reel tapes (I still have hundreds of hours of music on reel to reel tapes) 8 track tapes, cassette tapes and of course the current CD's. And don't forget iPods, digital downloads and streaming music.

Every one of these formats has led the assault to put the record companies out of business. But the vinyl record is still with us. Why? It could be largely due to DJs, who keep playing vinyl records, and of course, many music artists who insist on releasing their music on vinyl.

It's sad that kids today have missed the experience of growing up in the LP generation, the 50s, 60s and 70s. Buying an album based on the jacket, not knowing what it sounded like, was a magical time.  

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Collecting Vinyl Records - Album Cover Art
A Deciding Factor Why Vinyl Albums Are Collected.

The vinyl LP comes wrapped in colorful art work on the cover.  Lots of information and photo's can be included on a vinyl record album. Hard to do on a 5 inch by 5 inch CD.

Simply put - the vinyl record is a survivor. We enjoy the sound quality over other formats. And really, when you get down to it, digging through old record crates is part of the romance of being an LP collector.

And the colorful art work on the album covers and sleeves themselves is sometimes the only reason some of us look for that certain vinyl piece of record history.

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Framed Album Cover Art of The Month.
"Best of The Doobies."

When writing about music, especially music that was recorded before you were born, you only have the luxury of listening as an outsider. It is the Album Cover Artwork that will be a constant reminder how good the music inside really is.

Beautiful artwork on memorable album covers and sleeves are a sign of our life and times. For music fans the covers are the expression of a period, of a particular time in their lives. Below is another like new Framed Album Cover Art I still have in my collection today.

Released nearly 50 years ago on Oct 29,  1976, this is another great example of our Framed Album Cover Art you can display on the walls of your Hobby or Retro-Room. 

The band originally started out as a good-time party band. The guitar intro to "China Grove" is a rock classic, lending itself to every bar band in the world. There was something infectious about the early hits--strong melodies, great harmonies, and a genre-bending beat lifted the songs above the ordinary.

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Remembering Ronnie Spector
(August 10, 1943-January 12, 2022)

Ronnie Spector, the cat-eyed, bee-hived rock ‘n’ roll siren who sang such 1960s hits as “Be My Baby,” “Baby I Love You” and “Walking in the Rain” as the leader of the girl group the Ronettes, died on January 12, 2022. She was 78.

Read the Vinyl record memories story of The Ronettes, with a return to 1963 and their classic #2 song, Be My Baby...

"Winter Sunset" - Canvas
For Our Classic Car Friends.

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Dale Klee paints all my favorite hot rods, classic cars, motorcycles, and trucks from a time in history when I was growing up. His paintings are perfect examples of exactly how these classics looked at the time.

I know...I was there.

This 12" x 18" canvas was created for the "Junkyard Classics Calendar" from years past. A great way to start a collection with this painting called "Winter Sunset." 

A special gift for that good car buddy you've been friends with since back in the day. Ready to hang and priced extremely affordable. And don't forget to add Dale's 2025 Calendar to the list. Order at Dale Klee Art.

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You might also like these stories...

• Earl Grant may be a faded memory on the music scene but how could anyone overlook this beautiful classic ballad from the fifties that receives little or no airplay on the radio? Read the story here.
  

•  Many of us have always enjoyed the Beach Boys version but this talented lady just multiplied the WOW factor by a million. One of those really nice "feel good" love songs.
  

• Return with me to 1958 and the career of this deeply troubled artist, from street corner singing to Gold Gloves boxing champion, a solo career with Brunswick Records, and his 1958 signature song, "Lonely Teardrops."
  
  

I hope you find time to visit more great stories about growing up in the 50s, 60s and 70s. You can start here.... 

What's Next?

A look back at the Doo Wop Era. If you were a teenager in the 1950s and the early part of the 1960s, doo wop music brings back memories of hanging out with friends at the malt shop, Friday night dances, and first romances. The street corner groups of the fifties and sixties made some of the most beautiful music in those two decades.

Classic Framed Album Cover Art  with two of our classic Eagles original albums.

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