On the whole, Memphis is a vinyl-crazy town. Long before vinyl singles and LPs staged a comeback in the music market, this town had anything the collector of dusty old platters could want. So it’s only fitting that the vinyl medium is roundly honored by the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, where so many classic sides were created in the first place. Indeed, the label’s players and producers regularly researched the hip sounds of the ’60s via customers at the front of the Stax building, in the Satellite Record Shop.
Those record shop roots live on today. Case in point, the gift shop of the Stax Museum carries an impressive array of vinyl. And much of that will be available this Saturday, May 29th, at their Memorial Day weekend Sidewalk Sale. Running from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., this event, much beloved by vinyl aficionados throughout the region, will offer vinyl records, CDs, books, clothing, housewares, souvenirs, and more, at significant discounts. Hundreds of soul 45s, including deep Stax cuts, will be available, causing many a collector to flock to the event. (We recommend showing up early.)
Rounding out the day, DJ Superman, aka The Soul Brother, will be spinning R&B, soul, and funk vinyl all day. Food trucks will also be on hand, so you can grab a quick bite standing, then get back to digging through those crates.
Among the platters available will be many examples of vinyl devotion from Stax and Craft Recordings. The latter’s painstaking reissues of classic Stax releases, such as the 2019’s Soul Explosion double LP, speak volumes about how seriously they take the art of the lathe.
And this appreciation of wax stacks doesn’t just stop at the gift shop doors. The interior’s permanent exhibit features walls covered with every 45 released on Stax and its subsidiaries, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Recently, the museum also acquired one of the premier collections of Chicago soul vinyl in the world, originally curated by the late Bob Abrahamian.
Consisting of more than 35,000 singles and LPs, along with related high school yearbooks, photographs, scrapbooks, and other artifacts, the collection was begun by Abrahamian when he was a volunteer DJ at the University of Chicago in the 1990s. After his suicide in 2014, Abrahamian’s family searched for an appropriate home to house the collection, eventually settling on the Stax Museum this year. As such, their donation not only honors the profound connection between Stax Records and Chicago-area artists like the Staple Singers, it recognizes the museum’s commitment to all American soul and the vinyl medium in particular.
Abrahamian’s archive of rare records has nothing to do with Saturday’s sale, of course, but will be highlighted in various ways in the museum’s future exhibits, and made available to researchers. Nonetheless, it’s just one more example of why Memphis and the Stax Museum are a vinyl lover’s dream.
