Jack Goldberg
I wrote this obituary for Jack Goldberg ten years ago. It served, in part, for the inspiration of my song : The Last Bookstore
In Memorium : Jack Goldberg Last of The Record Retailers 1-09-10
By Stan Beinstein
Jack Goldberg died this week at the age of 66. I did not see him often. I did not know him well, but we understood each other to the core. Jack owned two record collector stores. Rhythms Of Woodstock and Jack’s Rhythms of New Paltz. The Woodstock store closed several years ago and that was the signpost for me that everything had changed. Woodstock no longer had a record store. Part of the adventure of shopping at Rhythms of Woodstock was that you could not only pick up something rare, you could pick up something dropped off by the artist. Be it John Herald or John Sebastian, Artie Traum, John Platania or Eric Andersen. You could also talk music; any kind of music.
In John Barry’s news item / obituary in the Poughkeepsie Journal (1-6-2010) Barry quotes John Lefsky, who recently took over Rhythms of New Paltz. Lefsky said in memory of Goldberg : “ turn off the lousy radio station or TV. Put on The Replacements , Doug Sahm, John Coltrane.” ….
As I read this I was deeply saddened and cut to the quick. I am the advertisng sales mananger of one of those “ lousy “ radio stations. WDST / Radio Woodstock, and even though I believe my station is better than most I understood John Lefsky’s frustration.
I began my career in music a few months shy of 17. It was the Summer Of Love 1967. I would take the #20 bus from Jerome Avenue in The Bronx to the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers where I worked at Sam Goody’s. One of my slightly older co- workers taught me all about jazz and blues and I soaked it up like a sponge. His name was Mike Winfield , one of the most amiable and giving human beings on the planet. He talked in a be bop cadence that I had only witnessed in movies.
Mike and I only had a few months together. He was a bass player and he was trying to launch a jazz/ rock band. I remember the two of us dissecting The Electric Flag. Mike’s baritone “ yeah man.. “ as we listened to Harvey Brooks’ bass on Killing Floor. Mike would leave Sam Goody’s after a few months. His band,.. The Colwell Winfield Blues Band prepared to launch on Verve Forecast records. The same label as The Blues Project. I remember being invited backstage at The Café Au Go Go on Bleeker St. in Greenwich Village. This was the club that housed the NYC premier of Cream and The Dead. A low ceiling basement with no more than 150 seats owned by Howard Solomon . They served no liquor just overpriced egg creams and ice cream sodas because their clientele had become teens listening to these emerging new sounds. Mike Winfield and Bill Colwell would move the band to Woodstock, where Van Morrison would take half the band to become his Moondance band. Mike subsequently spent years playing bass in society bands at The Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz and building houses.
We never crossed paths in Woodstock when I came to work there six years ago. A few years back Mike Winfield moved to Phoenix where his fellow bass player , the aforementioned Harvey Brooks lives. I would like to thank Michael Winfield for teaching me how to talk to customers about music. He could make anyone feel comfortable, from a know nothing to a know it all. He taught me about Muddy, and Wolf and Coltrane and Miles, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells and so much more. As I stocked the shelves with Cream’s Wheels Of Fire I was getting an education on the precursors Willie Dixon and Freddie King.
After Mike Winfield left Sam Goodys for fame and fortune I became the manager of the blues department. All 6 bins of it. Room for about 50 titles. If a kid like Eric Clapton with John Mayall I made him listen to Freddie King. If a kid liked Paul Butterfield I made him listen to Junior Wells or Little Walter. Actually met Sam Goody once (ne: Goodman). We were all on our best behavior as he visited the Yonkers store and we all shook his hand.
It was at that same store that I made my stand for Jimi Hendrix. The word was out on this incredible album …Are You Experienced … The Saturday morning that it came in I opened a copy without asking permission and put it on the portable Webcor stereo in the front of the store . I then made sure that the speakers were separated by at least 8 feet ( they usually sat four feet apart). Stereo was still new Sgt. Pepper was ringing in our heads. From the first notes of Purple Haze I was inside the music. Unbeknownst to me, the classical manager makes a B- line for the store manager and has “ that crap” taken off. I told the store manager that this album was important and being played today in its entirety…if I have to wait until the end of the day. I jeopardized my job and got my way later in the afternoon when the store was crowded with young people.
That’s where I understand John Lefsky’s frustration with radio. In a record store you play music for people and you look at their faces and you wait for customers to say. “what is that?” ( in a variety of tones. ) The more independent the store the more likely to experience esoteric music. Sam Goody’s was not the place for esoterica. Many years ago I told Eddie Kramer how I had stuck up for Jimi in that store. Eddie was impressed. He was the engineer on that album and so many more classics. My copy of that album is framed and autographed by Eddie Kramer.
Throughout my college years in New Paltz I worked at The Book and Record Store. It was a chain of about 8 stores throughout the Hudson Valley run by Lou Kustas of Poughkeepsie and his brother. Lou was a quiet man with a taste for classical music and his shops were big on gifts , cards, and books..so we had to be judicious in our musical choices..but we had more leverage in the New Paltz store with all the college kids. My customers included the late Dr. William Abruzzi. Dr. Bill was the head Dr. at the original Woodstock Festival. He was also the head Dr. at the infirmary at New Paltz . In those “heady” days Dr.Bill started a “ freak out” center where people having bad acid trips could be safely brought by their friends and calmed down and observed. Working from the theory that there could be three basic reasons for a bad trip. Bad drug, bad people, bad place. Bad drug is the hardest to determine. You could never be quite sure what kind of poison went into the manufacture…but bad people and bad place could be remedied with time and patience. I turned Dr. Bill onto Frank Zappa at The Book and Record. It was the Flo and Eddie period and he loved it. He would inquire about all kinds of music after that and his tastes were quite broad..jazz to classical to rock. A common mix today but odd then. The Book and Record was still not a place where anything goes on the turntable. That would come later.
After graduation and a couple of years on Madison Avenue buying TV time for Ivory Soap , I returned to New Paltz in the fall of 1974 to find a new establishment. The Spindle Spot in the middle of Main St. across from St Blaise Bar. Stu Johnstone had discovered the market for used albums. I started to work with Stu. We set up a band booking agency with my old room mate Roger Barnes and I moved into the store hell bent for a partnership. The “ used” record business had my attention. First you scrutinized the album for scratches then you made an offer based on both condition and your judgement of sell-a-bility . You could make more on used albums than on new ones. If you gave someone a $1.25 in store credit ..or..$1.00 in cash for an album that you could sell for $2.00 you were better off than buying new merchandise for $3.25 and retailing it for $3.95 .
We knew the handwriting was on the wall for new albums when Springsteen’s Born To Run came out in 1975. With that album our wholesale price from the “one stop” ( distributor) in Philly went up to from $3.25 to $3.52 and Barker’s Department Store up the road was selling it retail as a loss leader for $3.49. Then I went into the store one day and saw this album cover of a dorky couple with their Bulldog. It was The Captain and Tenille . The “ one stop” had insisted that this was going to be the biggest seller of the year. I stared at that Captain’s stupid hat for weeks. This was not our clientele. Finally a guy bought it for his kid sisters birthday. To this day I find the song Love Will Keep Us Together both captivating and depressing. Luckily I never partnered with Stu in that store. I went my way across the river to Poughkeepsie. Where the late Larry Plover, proprietor of The Last Chance Saloon would change my life and help me get into radio.
Years later I would shop with Jack Greenberg at both of his stores periodically. I knew he had no money to advertise. I would stop to just talk music. I remember when CD s were new and there were two artists that I was passionately seeking on disc, Fred Neil and Moby Grape. We talked about different music, recordings, performances all aspects of music. I told Jack about the store in New Paltz that was halfway up the block on the same side of the street years earlier. At one point I didn’t see Jack for nearly a year. If I dropped in one store he would be in the other, …and when I did finally see him he said.. “got some Fred Neil for you!” …That’s what I mean about a record store man..he knew his customers… and you NEVER knew what you were going to hear when you went in there. The magic of was always the lack of predictability. Charles Mingus? The Replacements? Dave Van Ronk?
There are precious few stores left like that. You’ll find Bleeker Bob’s on W. 4th st. in the village. I remember when this long narrow store was the Night Owl Café which launched the career of the Lovin Spoonful. I make it my business to buy something there when I’m in the village. If you happen upon one please buy something. Now that my kids are grown, family trips to the mall are less frequent. I still get left at Best Buy ..but now music and movies are reduced to a few short rows….and there are only so many phones I can look at. Although it is gratifying to see a shelf of contemporary vinyl.
Music has been reduced to the intellectual property….just the music… no package..no library… same with movies… Call me old fashioned or crazy ( actually you CAN be both), but I have thousands of albums and I don’t even have a working turntable. I exhibit them in frames. I have 12,000 songs downloaded to my ipod. Yes I know.. it’s shameful… but I still buy discs and download them.
I am once again brought back to Sam Goodys 1967 -68 . When a box of 50 albums could break your back weighing in at about 30 pounds. Hauling a stack of cds is certainly a lot easier. I remember when The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour came out and I had to take 40 vinyl album titles off the wall in bins that were 10 deep each. Then replace them ALL with this one Beatles album..just to watch it sell out in a day. I remember Dylan’s return after a year and a half in seclusion with John Wesley Harding and the debates that would ensue in front of that album.. ( “ is that his band on the cover?.... no.. they are a tribe of Indians)…
About seven years ago I was in a collectors store in Great Barrington Mass. The owner behind the counter was about my age as I listened to college kids debate about the virtues of various artists. Loving the debate but being unfamiliar with much of the content I took my purchase to the register and told the proprietor: “ I come from a planet where MOBY is Grape and BECK is Jeff.” … We both cracked up…. Yes John…A record store CAN do things that no single radio station can do….
I am grateful for my years in the record store both as an employee and patron. I’m still friendly with two men whom I met a boyhood customers at Sam Goodys over 40 years ago. Paul Tesoro of Central Hudson Gas and Electric and Richie Kaplan of Max’s On Main in Beacon, NY. I believe that music is to be shared. I was cautious about all the excitement over the Sony Walkman 30 years ago. Music was becoming a solitary experience…. I got my first 6 transistor radio in 1960… bopping around as Dion sang the Wanderer, sharing the tune with anybody within ten feet. The ipod poses the same threat although there are some pretty good docking stations from Bose that bring back the shared experience.
Go into a local independent record store if you can find one…make a request and buy something even if it’s a smarmy Jack Black kind of kid behind the counter . So here’s to the independent stores on Frodham Rd. in The Bronx.Cousins..and The Spinning Disc where you could ALWAYS find hipper stuff than at Alexander’s …but more importantly you could find people to talk about the music with.
Thank you Jack Goldberg for remembering how much Fred Neil meant to me.