“My vinyl collection is a mixed bag, the origins of which can be traced to three distinct sources, each one representing a different era of my life.”
“Shortly after my father passed away, my stepmother offered me their combined vinyl collection, as well as a beautiful Linn Axis turntable. There was some choice rock stuff in there, maybe a little Grace Jones here, a little Rolling Stones there, but mostly it was blues and soul and jazz records. These are not my genres per se, but at this point I don’t know where I’d be without the sounds of Taj Majal, Stanley Turrentine, Chet Baker, and Nina Simone that I was introduced to through these records.
Somewhere along the way I even uncovered the classic 70’s era stash of weed in the sleeve of The Wild Tchoupitoulas, or was it in a Lou Reed record, I can’t quite recall. Even with some trade-in’s of a fair amount of Chicago style electric blues albums, which is not, and I don’t believe will ever be, my thing, these albums are still the “meat” of my collection.
During my teenage years, there was a small cabin on the property of my fathers’ house, often inhabited by a friend or employee of his that he had taken under his wing. Anne Murray was one of these people, and we had that unique friendship that can only happen between an awkward teenage boy and a smokin’ hot young lady who was cool enough to treat me as an equal and adult.
Her life eventually spiraled out of control with a tragic ending that hurts me to this day, but in all that spiraling her albums got left behind, stuck in some boxes that sat in our basement for years after her departure. She didn’t introduce me to these bands, it’s what I was already listening to, and maybe that has something to do with our friendship, but gotta say I’m damned happy to have vinyl copies of Pink Floyd’s Obscured By Clouds, Leonard Cohen’s Songs From A Room, and David Bowie’s Heroes. And it makes me even happier to know that they were once hers. Thanks Annie! Rest in Peace…
The third source of records in my collection has been my niche pursuit of the vinyl of current artists I love like Radiohead, Beirut, and Cornelius, mostly purchase from the artists directly at their shows. I gotta say I absolutely love the format of free download card within a vinyl purchase, and am so happy that most small labels, which are the homes to my favorite bands, do this with all their releases.
But this is a small portion of my collection, and I really love and enjoy the fact that what I listen to at home, my actual choice of music and genre, is different that what I’d listen to on my iPod or in the car. From Miles Davis to Mark Almond, my collection is mostly music that came to me, not the other way around.”
—Gabriel Leis
