So I regularly now stop in at St. Vincent De Paul thrift store in Waunakee every couple of weeks. I scout for the ever elusive reel-to-reel, or any other unique stereo stuff, who knows what could be there. Now I have an added reason.

Vinyl.

They have a rack near the floor with about 7 feet of albums. The price, $1.25 each. Once in a while I would flip through some, usually finding Charlie Rich, Jimmy Swaggart, Streisand, Carly Simon, Olivia Newton John and a host of Hits of the whatever year you please. Polka, Classical and stuff you do NOT want.

This time though I was determined to go through them all. Ugh. You have to kneel down and they are crammed in so that you can barely flip through them. The first 50 I looked at were useless. Then came this one.

This looked like a record that was recorded at home. A Recordio Disc. It was hand labelled from 1958. On red vinyl too. I couldn’t pass it up, even though it was clearly a 78. Hell I bought records when I didn’t even have a record player. This wasn’t much more insane.

The hand writting on the label reads: 12/10/58 Carolyn Baker Story Grade 4.

I like at the bottom of the label, it reads “Slow Burning”.

I did some research on this Wilcox-Gay Recordio Disc. It was a radio/record model that could record a record.

I love the “Voice of Memory” bit.

Here is some more info, cool site too: http://www.retrothing.com/2009/01/vintage-1940s-record-cutter.html

Also check out this link to the Internet Museum of Flexi / Cardboard / Oddity Records. Good Fun.  https://www.wfmu.org/MACrec/index.html

So was this the precursor of cassette tapes? You could do it at home in your living room. This must have been the type of thing that my father recorded his letter/record for his folks when he was in the war. E-bay is full of them, and they aren’t necessarily worth much, but it was a cool find and I’ll keep it. I did put it on and play it at 45. It sounded like a kid singing and reciting. Probably done at school. Cute.

So I kept digging… and found this. “Steve Martin – A Wild And Crazy Guy”.

Oh man. I remember when my Unce Gary bought this for me for Christmas when I lived in Ann Arbor. It is a riot. I quote from this still to this day. Jeff and I were both into Steve Martin big time back in the day. I also had at one point his “Let’s Get Small” too. Steve Martin’s autobiographical book, which I listened to on CD on a car trip recently gave me a new perspective on him, and new respect for his craft. Check it out. “Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life”. This was a great find.

I also found 2 Rickie Lee Jones albums. The self titled “Rickie Lee Jones”.

and “Pirates”

Now, back in the day, I had “Rickie Lee Jones”. I loved the song “Chuck E.’s In Love” and was in a phase where based merely on that song I loved Jones. I bought it and continued to love the Chuck song, but the rest was too mature for me at the time. This cover for me is iconic though. This one is making me consider record display mounts. Hmmm…

Pirates I never had and have no idea about, but I might be in the right place for it now.

“Simon and Garfunkel – Greatest Hits”, a must. There was another S & G there which I thought I put back for this one, but ended up getting both. I gave the other to Abbey. I think Paul Simon is a great songwriter. He is funny too. The song “One Trick Pony” and “You Can Call Me Al” (for my friend Jeff, who goes by Al) are my favorites after this album. His SNL appearances are funny if you can find them. We learned about his writing style in college creative writing. You go Paul.

Then, I was about to give up, the store was closing, when I came across something that literally made me blurt out “No F’ing Way!” as I crouched on the floor at St. Vinny’s.

They had “Streisand / Kristofferson – A Star Is Born” !!!

This was the first record I ever recorded. I listened to it at night when I went to bed when I was a kid. No way. Amazing. I couldn’t believe it. There were still about 3 feet of albums to go through, but I would have to come back.

I took my little pile and left.

About $6.50 worth of vinyl, priceless.

Thank you St. Vinny.