Hail Vinyl!

For all the bad news about the independent record stores, this is a welcome sight...Hail Vinyl!

For the record, Taylor’s downtown newsstand, bookstore to stay open

by Kelley Chambers
The Journal Record

OKLAHOMA CITY – Hal Priddy Jr. had plans to retire this year, even if that meant closing his downtown newsstand that has been around since 1913.

But about two years ago Priddy began selling plaques with celebrity photos at Taylor’s News Stand & Book Store that were created by Clyde Kemper. Kemper would eventually become instrumental in the next chapter for Taylor’s.Kemper and business partner Paul Pennell this month began moving record albums into the back of Taylor’s, at 133 W. Main St., with plans to purchase the store. The deal is set to close in April.

“There’s not going to be much of a change in the store at all,” Pennell said. “We thought it would be silly to change the name because it’s been here so long.”

Customers who stop by daily for newspapers, magazines and sundries will find the same selection. If they also happen to be looking for an LP of the Beatles or the Jackson 5, they will also be in luck.
Priddy and his father purchased the store from the Taylor family in 1970. In 1996 Priddy bought out his father.

In 1996 Priddy moved the store to its spot on the lower level of Main Street Parking and four years later added 2,500 square feet for a total of about 6,000 square feet.

The LPs are now mostly in the 2,500 square feet at the back along with sports and music photos and mementos.

For many years Priddy stocked more than 100 newspapers from around the country. As it became more expensive to get those papers here in the 1990s, he began scaling back the offerings.

“You buy newspapers non-returnable,” Priddy said. “We were very frugal as far as what we bought and how many we bought.”

Today Taylor’s carries fewer than 20 daily and Sunday newspapers, books and a wide selection of magazines.

John Kennedy, with Irish Realty, owns Main Street Parking and lured Priddy to the current space after being a customer of his for many years.

“Hal is one of our favorite tenants ever and we will miss him when he retires,” Kennedy said. “It’s important for downtown to have a store like Taylor’s.”

Priddy will keep his other business running trucks to Dallas each evening to pick up the The New York Times for distribution in Oklahoma.

Pennell began seriously collecting records in 2003 when Rolling Stone released its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. A quick perusal of his collection yielded 11 of the 500.

He spent the next few years amassing a huge collection of records, many of which weren’t on the list.

Garage sales, thrift stores and estate sales were a gold mine for finding records to fill in his collection.
“I got good at finding records that way,” Pennell said. “I started getting some really good records and some really rare stuff.”

Kemper, a friend and neighbor, had also started collecting records and the two got the idea to one day open a store.

“I said to Clyde, ‘if you put your records with my records we’re going to have a complete record store,’” Pennell said.

In conversations with Priddy, Kemper knew he was looking to retire and sell Taylor’s. After he talked with Pennell, they decided they could open their record store inside an established business knowing that most people stopping by would still be there for books and magazines.

Since moving about 10,000 records into the store over the past few weeks, vinyl aficionados and those with a touch of nostalgia have stopped by to browse records from the last 50 years.

Most of the albums are priced from $10 to $15, but there are also some treasures.

Pennell has a rare version of Bob Dylan’s 1966 double-album Blonde on Blonde, priced at $250. He also has a collection of rare singles by Elvis Presley and the Beatles locked in glass cases.

Priddy said Taylor’s has weathered many ups and downs in the city and he is pleased the legacy will continue.

“We survived the Depression selling newspapers,” he said. “It would be foolish not to carry that on.”

SOURCE: http://www.journalrecord.com/