45's.................vinyl singles, picture sleeves, B-sides...It's a magical world!....


I have made the executive decision to change the focus of my music blog. I am pretty sure that the blog-changes will not cause chaos in the world order because the only people who check this blog regularly are my wife, daughters and Richie Burke (Hi Rich!)....and only if I call Rich and tell him to check out my blog.
 The blog will now feature songs and pictures based on my collection of 45's.


Over the Labor Day holiday, I finished the torturous mission of obsessively re-categorizing my collection in alphabetical order and by musical era:

1) anything before 1980= oldies
2) alphabetical by artist
3) Christmas songs in separate section
4) specialty records (colored vinyl, picture discs,etc.)

Like most music fans who  joined the game in the late 60's/early 70's, my introduction to pop music consisted of AM radio and vinyl singles. I abused the records, discarded  the protective sleeves and stacked them on top of each other like any normal kid should have...My grandmother (Nana....aka Anna Rodgers) kick started my obsession in 1969 by buying me 45's when she took me shopping in downtown Philadelphia or Upper Darby(69th Street!). I kind of remember the price being 2 for 99 cents. I wish that I still had some of my original 45's but I would repurchase the ones I remembered when I became a serious collector in the 80's/90's.

My interest in 45's resurfaced in 1981 when I scored a dream-job at Wee Three Records in The Springfield Mall. All of a sudden, I was in the trenches of the music world. I had first crack at new releases and was intrigued by these miniature vinyl records. There was much to love for someone with a weakness for collecting stuff. Some of the records including a cool picture sleeve for a limited time and the b-side of the single sometimes included rare material that would not appear on the full-length album. Did I mention the possibility of colored-vinyl?!!!  Nice!


As I scanned through by entire 45 collection during the recent reorganization project, I realized how much joy this wacky collection gave me...many life-hours were spent scrounging through record stores,garage sales and record conventions to find songs that entered my head and refused to leave until I held that coveted piece of vinyl in my hands...


One of my earliest memories of a 45 was Paul Revere and The Raiders- Let Me. This tune had a very limited shelf-life. Let Me was a Top 40 hit in 1969 but I don't recall hearing this song in future years on oldies radio stations. This tune is a classic rock and roll pop song with raw energy, fuzz-guitar and Jagger-ish vocals. I still love to crank this song and for a few minutes..i am doing some time-travel....back to a magical time when my love affair with music was just getting started...