Those Oldies But Goodies...

by Steve Propes | Hometown Music

While in college, Long Beach State to be specific, I continued to collect 45rpm rock and roll records unabated. Every Independence and New Year’s Day, local Thrifty Drugstores would set up racks full of out-of-print 45s… ten for a dollar. I’d get the address of every store in Long Beach and visit each one, buy what looked interesting and wait for the next sale.

What I didn’t know was while I was blanketing the Long Beach Thrifty Drugstores, a Torrance record store clerk named Bob Hite and his buddy Claude McKee were doing the same thing in their town. But they went one further. They located the distributor’s name on the record rack and contacted the source, getting in the warehouse and buying the records before they were shipped.

I later learned this when I met Hite – better known as leader of the blues-rock band Canned Heat, which got a giant kick-start at Woodstock – and McKee at the record swap in West L.A., the predecessor to the famed Capitol Tower record meet in Hollywood.

Hite had a major collection of pre-war blues 78s and McKee also acquired these super-rarities. But Hite liked 45s too. When his label, Liberty, picked up the historic Imperial and Aladdin labels, he went through the vaults and carted off everything he could, creating the Legendary Masters reissue series in the process. Another man with major collector chops, Barry Hansen, later known as Dr. Demento, also showed up at these record shows every month.

While Canned Heat toured, members Hite and guitar player Henry Vestine would aggressively seek out rare blues and country 78s at out of the way locales. Sadly, several members of the band got heavily into drugs. Lead singer Al Wilson died early of an overdose and Hite’s collection went to the winds – or equally aggressive record collectors (same thing) – in his search for the next high. It wasn’t unusual to get midnight phone calls – “Meet me at the alley behind Hamburger Henry’s, I’ve got records, I need cash.” Tempting, but I never went. Others did.

And other collectors were heavily into drugs, but maybe in the 70s and 80s, that was the way to be. Most are dead now.

I had a job, which required me to be in the field where, during dull moments, I could constantly scour thrift and used shops from Compton to Lynwood, from Carson to Orange County to grab all the vinyl I could find.

In Compton, I met Gary Peterson, a friend to this day. He was standing in the back room of the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop sifting through used 45s. His secret was the product he sold on his route: Bowie Pies. What thrift store clerk is going to refuse delicious pies – his only request, let me be the first to see the 45s. I only had my winning personality, but in both cases, we each had our ins.

In the very early 1970s, I’d visit the library to find books on phonograph records from which I could glean information about the records I loved so much. Should I have been surprised to learn most of the books on records were about classical, opera and if I was lucky, jazz? Nothing serious had been published on the field of rock & roll – rhythm & blues record collecting. My fruitless search for collecting literature provided me a simple idea. If there’s no book out there on the subject, why not write it? Stupid idea; so I plowed ahead.

After submitting a manuscript to the L.A. Times magazine called "New West" – they almost bought it, but they went under before they could – I sold the manuscript to Macmillan. It was titled “Those Oldies But Goodies” and got a good review in Rolling Stone. The timing was impeccable. Old rock and roll was experiencing a big rebound in 1972, the year KRTH-FM debuted and Dr. Demento was more popular than ever. The release of “American Graffiti” in 1973 just amped up the scene.

The good news was “Those Oldies But Goodies” sold about 20,000 copies…the bad news was the low, low cover price… low price, low royalties. My editor left Macmillan and I wound up where he wound up, at Chilton, which was the perfect publisher for car repair manuals, not so great for books on record collecting, so my two follow-up works didn’t sell nearly as well as the first.

“Those Oldies But Goodies” revealed that old 45s could be worth a lot, but very compared to today’s prices. $100 was a lot. Some collectors didn’t like me publishing their secret information. Once, a dealer who sold out of a house built on the back of a pick-up truck was in the same line I was at a record show and pointed to me – “There’s the guy who wrote the book!” he exploded. “Get him!” Well, maybe it was a little less harsh, but it seemed doom-provoking to me. He’s now in Austin, Texas, and I’m still here.

In 1973, a Press-Telegram reporter named Denise Kusel heard about my activities from the first book I had published, so she contacted me about doing an article on record collecting. It appeared in papers all over America and I got many calls about collections for sale, many of which I bought. Which is all prelude to me contacting the new management at KLON and changing my life forever.


About Hometown Music
A graduate of Wilson High (1960) and CSULB (1965), Steve Propes has been collecting records for many decades; was the KLON R&B DJ from 1981 to 1990 (with a short return in '93); has interviewed hundreds of singers, players, DJs and label owners; hosted Steve Propes Rock & Roll House Party on Charter Cable; founding member of the So. Cal Doo Wop Society; author of seven published books on R&R history and hosts the Steve Propes 45s Show is heard live on www.wpmd.org on Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m. and on www.rockitradio.net, playing from his collection of over 35,000 45s, about 1,000 CDs and hours on interviews on tape.

Since 2000, Steve has reported for and written a police column for the Beachcomber and contributed to various music publications like Record Collector News, which can be found at record stores and record meets.

SOURCE: http://www.lbpost.com/steve/5805