Nightlife / Stephanie Depasquale

A newfound love of vinyl

By Stephanie De Pasquale | Tuesday, October 14, 2008 | () comments

At the beginning of summer, I bought a recording of the Amy Winehouse song “Back to Black.” And by recording, I mean the large vinyl kind.

Then I bought Duffy’s “Rockferry,” and after several trips to Mixtapes in East Moline and a couple of flea markets, I had quite the collection of Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole and other classic voices I thought would sound great on a record player.

There was just one problem. I didn’t actually have anything on which to play my new vinyl. I thought my parents’ old record player was still in their basement, but I sadly discovered they had thrown it out years ago.

My dad found one at a garage sale for $5, but it doesn’t work, so he’s tinkering in an attempt to bring it back to life.

But now I have a newfound reason to locate a record player. My grandparents gave me their music collection, and there must be more than 100 records in the banana box they filled to the brim.

I went through the box yesterday, trying to find sleeves for all the loose records, and I feel the need to play all of them right now. There are copies of Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, an Elvis Christmas album, Chicago, Barry Manilow, Billy Joel, The Beach Boys, The Monkees, and the soundtracks from “Star Wars,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “The Sound of Music.” There are even recordings of JFK’s speeches and man’s first landing on the moon.

My grandparents hinted that if my dad can’t fix the $5 record player, they will get me one for Christmas. But I’m hoping Dad has success because I personally think Elvis and Bing Crosby singing Christmas carols on vinyl would be the perfect soundtrack for putting up the tree this winter.

Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com.