THE ROCKAWAY I KNEW
By Matthew Bashie
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE ISOLATION BOOTH
What kind of music did you like listening to when you were a youngster? Did you like big band music? Hit songs of the day? Doo-Wop sounds? Did you like listening, dancing, and singing along to Rock 'n Roll music? What I liked and remember best was the "listening booth."
Back in the early days of the 1950s, there were two major record stores in our little town of Far Rockaway. The battle of survival between the "shellac-type" 78 rpm and the newly-introduced plastic 45 rpm was still in full "swing" with the older format "fighting for dear life!" The question was: hold on to and continue to collect and add to pre-existing libraries of the large ten-inch breakable oldies, or to "switch" over to the small seven-inch 45rpm disk that was becoming more and more popular.
I received a new RCA-Victor (then known as a) Victrola as a holiday gift at the end of 1953. It was a small blue and white portable - I think my parents "got it" for me because my mom had a "bunch" of old recordings she wanted to hear but we didn't own a player. So, that was my gift. The only thing was: I owned no records; nor was I particularly interested in music. Anyway - not to the extent that I wanted to run right out and buy records - of any speed.
My father, realizing the foolishness of this gift, decided to give me a few dollars to buy myself a few records. At least that would give me something to do for a few hours and it would also provide me with a reason for wanting to own a record player.
My best friend, Ralph, and I walked northbound on Central Avenue that cold winter morning in January of 1954. On the way, we discussed the "music of the day" which at that time was primarily single singers - such as Kaye Starr and Johnny Ray. A new and up-and-coming "sound" was "Rock n' Roll" and some guy named Bill Haley and a back-up group called The Comets had put out two "decent" tunes over the past few months. I had no idea!
We ended up in a record store on the east side of the street - within a few yards of Mott Avenue. The shop was called "DJ Records" The place had many wooden trays which held hundreds upon hundreds of the small (new style) 45 rpm records. Ralph selected a few of the disks from several of the trays and then the two of us walked to the back of the store where there were four glass booths. Each booth had two chairs and a turn-table upon which to play the records. The booths were, for the most part, soundproofed so that we had complete audio privacy; but you could see out of the glass and anyone in the store could look in and see you.
What we were expected to do is to play each record to see if we wanted to buy it. By today's standards, this sounds insane. Who would buy a recording without having first heard it - at least a dozen or so times. In fact, today we need not even BUY a song but can download it for free off of the internet. But in those days, this is what people actually did. They selected the records they wanted to hear and then took the product into the "isolation booth" and sat and listened to the records. You might not believe any of this but it is true. I was there. I myself did just this.
Ralph and I played the songs he had selected for us -
mostly Doo Wop selections by a variety of singers (and groups) mostly
black people - which was fine by me. In fact, the first time I heard "Bill
Haley & His Comets" I thought they were black as well. I guess
it was the era. What we finally decided on was a selection of Bill Haley,
a group called The Platters, and a duo of sisters who called
themselves "Patience and Prudence".
Records were .89 each and I had five dollars so we got about a buck in change - so on the way home we stopped into an eatery on Central known as "Pickwick" and bought a double bag of french fries to eat on the walk back home.
A "bag" of french fries was just that. The food store took a regular brown paper bag and then "dumped" in a basket of fresh french fries. You would then take the rubber ketchup bottle off the counter and squeeze some product onto the potatoes - and salt them if you wished. A fist full of napkins was also required because as we walked home, we kept dipping our hands into the bag to retrieve the fries so we became covered with the grease and the tomato sauce.
A week or so later, my dad and I just happened to go into the "other" record store in town - Columbia Camera. The photo shop also did a big business in records. Columbia sold the larger breakable 78s as well as the smaller plastic 45s. Columbia Camera did not offer listening booths so I was expected to know what the song sounded like before I determined to buy it on disk. By that time, I was listening to the radio at home in bed at night so I had a better idea of the style of music that I preferred and the singers that I liked best.
Although Columbia Camera did not have those convenient booths, what they offered instead was a "record club." That meant that they gave you a cardboard card with the store name on it and places for ten punches indicated on the face of the card. Every time I would stop by and buy a record, the owner of the store would "punch" out one of the slots on the card and when I had all the ten slots punched -1 was entitled to a "free" record of my choice. So, the "record club" was a better deal - inasmuch as the platters were the same price at both stores, I opted to buy from the place that gave me a better deal! I was young - not stupid. Wait! Can we debate that??
By the time Ralph's birthday had "rolled around"
at the end of the month, he asked for and got a record player as a gift.
His machine was far superior to mine because it had a spindle upon which
he could place a stack of records and then as each record finished playing,
another record from the stack would "drop down" and the machine
could play about an hour's worth of music without being attended. Within
the next few months, my friend and I had a collection of about fifty records.
We shared with each other and as we became tired of hearing a song, we
would trade or exchange with the other kids in the neighborhood. If nothing
else, it gave us something different to do, other kids to meet, and additional
stores to explore.
We discovered that we could also buy records (at a lower price) from the
two 5 & 10 cent stores in town. We soon abandoned the traditional
record shops and started purchasing our records from department stores
from as far away as Hempslead and Jamaica. Some shops
on the streets of Jamaica (Sutphin Boulevard) had cardboard boxes of records
- older stuff-out on the street and that kind of merchandise could be
"had" for a quarter or so. Like I said before, it certainly
gave us something to do.
Shortly into the middle of the decade, DJ Records eliminated those old-fashioned "listening booths" The store eventually went out of business. More and more shops in the local neighborhood began to carry records and prices started to fall. By the time Elvis "hit it big" in 1956/57, my personal record collection was in the hundreds. I do most things in excess - it is a family trait.
If you wish to contact me at any time, feel free to do so through this web site.
I always love hearing from my fans and friends. M. B.