New Vinyl Record Articles

'Music Man Murray' trades in records for acting career


Murray Gershenz, with a collection of 400,000 records and a shop on Exposition Boulevard in L.A., is looking to sell so he can focus on auditions and shoots.

Murray Gershenz knows he's setting something of a record by giving a new spin to his career this late in life.

After all, Gershenz has spent most of his 87 years collecting music -- old operas preserved on tube-like Edison cylinders, Big Band-era crooners on brittle 78 rpm discs, emerging rock stars on small 45s and established pop artists on larger LP albums. He owns as many as 400,000 records.

But now, "Music Man Murray" plans to unload his collection so he can become a full-time actor.

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www.latimes.com

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The Record Exchange: Still revolving after all these years

It’s an unassuming storefront along Washington Street, just up from Starbucks and around the corner from the Lafayette Hotel.

A cardboard stand-up of Tom Waits skulks in the corner of the front window, as if waiting for someone walking by to kindly light his cigarette. Above the store there’s a carved plaque of Dizzy Gillespie cradled in a crescent moon, blowing his crazy horn up to the stars.

Step inside and you’ll find bins full of record albums, CDs, tapes, DVDs, posters and paintings of musicians, original 45s by Elvis and The Beatles and others displayed on the walls. You’ve stumbled onto a vast collection of musical history, rare vinyl treasures, and the most knowledgeable and friendly salespeople you could ever hope to meet. So it’s been for over 35 years, but any day you walk in is just another day at The Record Exchange.

In the early 1970s, owner Ross Kolhonen had recently finished graduate school, traveled through India for while and was planning to get another degree in business school. Instead, he decided to try his hand at starting a business himself. With a small loan, some stock collateral and money he made that summer painting houses, Kolhonen opened up the first Record Exchange, in a storefront at Salem’s Lafayette Hotel.

“And now, here we are,” he says with a smile....

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The Record Exchange