Earl Songer

“Honky Tonkin’ Blues”

scum stats: good luck

So the 6-year-old is out of school and it feels like any routine is completely upended. Couple that with a holiday weekend, and there’s no sure bets. Even record shows are a “possibility” and not a “sure thing."

Sunday morning finds us ably battling the intense heat at the Nashville flea market. All three little girls are CHAMPS and the fact that they are into Pixar movies from 10-15 years ago means there’s usually some cheap little gee-gaw to be had for a couple of bucks that keeps ‘em happy.

Mabel was totally stoked on a Lightning McQueen matchbox car and a little Batman figurine. Violet got a baby doll. Navy just started crawling, so she got nothing.

Mom found a kids t-shirt depicting the 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Topps rookie card (photo attached below). Oh man, this thing is badass. I am supes jealous of whichever daughter gets to wear this. Just more ways for us parents to use our kids as a billboard for how cool we think we are.

(yes, I agree that a shirt of the Upper Deck Jr. Griffey rookie card would be ultimately cooler, but beggars cannot be choosers at the flea market)

After battling the heat and naps and in-car diaper changes and feedings and fighting and spills and getting back home it was 2:45 and the record show had an end time of 4pm.

I told Malissa it was fine, I didn’t care, it wouldn’t be enough time to get through anything substantial, that it was no big deal, that I have enough records already (lie)…but she urged me to go anyway, even if it was only for 40 minutes.

I think maybe she was anticipating me blaming her if I didn’t go. But whatever the double-reverse psychology that was (or was not) going on, if your wife tells you to go to the record show…you just go to the record show.

Tore ass on the freeway and got there at 3 on the dot and had an hour to explore. A 7-inch copy of Bob and Earl’s “Harlem Shuffle” (which I may already have in the collection) was an easy $4 purchase to get the ball rolling.

From there I spent a substantial amount of time at the Sundazed Records booth, helmed by Jay and Brian, old friends going back to their days working at URP. Lots of vinyl biz convo shop talk and I didn’t even buy anything but felt…fulfilled. Even if I saw no more records, I was convinced my time was well-spent.

Yet right as the clock struck 4 I found myself in a far corner of the Nashville Palace, a tidy table set-up primarily with 78 rpm discs.

“Man…how are 78’s selling in a place like this?” I asked.

“Not well” the dealer replied.

You see…78s are just an entirely different realm, arguably the last bastion of the stereotypical “record collector” portrait that existed for decades before the press push behind the whole “vinyl revival’’ changed records into a perceived lifestyle statement vis a vis consumption culture.

78s are still primarily a world of old white men stuck in the past. And those guys are literally dying EVERY day. The discs themselves are NOT easy to sell…they really require an advanced knowledge, not just of music and genre, but also grading (78s weirdly use their own grading standards, different from 45s or LPs), shipping, cleaning and storage. It’s almost as if they’re just distant cousins twice removed from the records that everyone else is enamored by.

(for a clearer explanation as to the oddness behind 78 collectors, I HIGHLY recommend the Amanda Petrusich book “Do No Sell at Any Price” which delves FAR into the origins, depths and psyche of the disease)

So while it’s not really my cup of tea, I started to flip through, the sheer number of 78s this guy had for sale alone was worth exploring.

We make small talk, he asks what I collect and I tell him, almost exclusively, anything from Detroit or Michigan.

He paused for a second and said that’s a pretty interesting approach…especially because so much stellar music of so many different genres can fall into those classifications.

“I’ve got a couple Fortune discs somewhere in there” he said.

My ears perked up. I’m not sure if I’d ever seen any Fortune 78s out in the wild. Started in 1946, Fortune was the pre-eminent local Detroit record label before Motown burst onto the scene...a family-run affair between spouses Jack and Devora Brown that tackled everything in their releases…country, blues, polka, gospel, r&b, doo-wop and anything in-between.

I knew the Songer name barely, but more than anything, I loved the idea that TALKING with this gentleman at a record show in Nashville about how much I love Detroit music lead me to TWO 78s that, while an odd format that I tend to only collect in unexpected ethnic releases from the Detroit metro area, I ultimately felt like needed a home with the rest of my Detroit collection.

I threw in a Louise and Ferara 78 of Hawaiian waltz because it was on Paramount, following with small talk about how the label I work for released two Paramount compilations, but I couldn’t recall if these specific songs were included or not.

Yeah I probably paid a little more than I wanted to (which was still probably a deal) more than anything I was just happy about how the turn of events made me feel.

Dealer asked if Third Man was the label I worked for. I said yeah. He then asked me if I was connected with Swank’s in-laws. I laughed at how small it made the world seem and then clarified, no, he was mistaking me for my TMR co-founder Ben Swank.

All the while…the dude at the table next to him was packing up his boxes. Out the corner of my eye, I noticed an original copy of the Gun Club’s “Fire of Love” album sticking out on display. Literally as I was finalizing my transaction for the 78s, I said “hey man…hold that Gun Club…I wanna check it out.”

With the kids at the moment, it’s been insanely difficult to spend time with my record collection, but literally the day before, I’d perused the “G” section of my LPs and was shocked to find that I did not possess an original Ruby Records copy of this top ten must have album.

I haggled a bit, got to where I was comfortable, folks literally loading out of the room at this point, and with a combo of cash and card payments made my final purchase of the day.

When I’d told Katty last Friday that there was a record show over the weekend she replied “oh man, that always makes for a great record of the week post” and that kinda had me laugh.

But Katty’s wiser than she lets on. And more often than not, she’s right.