Did vinyl sales just hit the proverbial brick wall?

@edcyn: The size of the Tahoe is exactly why I bought it; I use it to haul my drums to gigs. For awhile I had it AND my old '84 BMW 528e, but by 2008 it's parts had started to regularly wear out, and BMW parts aren't cheap. I didn't want to sink anymore dough into it, and sold it to the State of California for a grand.

@edcyn: I'm thinking about getting a good bike again. Last one I had was a Bottecchia, fully Campagnolo equipped, sew-up tires (never again!). My area has some real nice bike-riding streets.

@edcyn: No problem, I was in Music Millennium again today (oh no, I'm going to record stores every day now ;-) and bought the disc. But it's a CD, not an LP (like I said, the album is getting hard to find on LP. If they had the LP I'm sure it would have been priced at maybe 20 bucks). I know, my post didn't make that clear. Anywho, now I have a copy for the car (2000 Chevy Tahoe Ltd., lowered 4 inches front and rear). 

I last saw Dylan live in 2001, and he was fantastic, far better than he been when I saw him 10 years earlier. But then he was playing better music, and had a far, far better band. Of course, that was 22 years ago now. But he still has great material, and a great band. Um, yeah, I’d rather see him at 80 than Rihanna, whatever her age. But that’s just me.

I consider my fortunate in getting to see and hear Big Joe Turner in the mid-80’s---when he was in his mid-70’s, shortly before his death. By far the greatest male singer I’ve ever heard live. And backing him were The Blasters, with the great Lee Allen blowing tenor sax. Awesome!

Time will tell. But even if LP's return to a niche product level (even more so than some think they already are), so what? As long as they are available, those who want them will be able to get them. And there will ALWAYS be millions of used LP's, many containing music never made available on CD. As a side note: there are also plenty of albums which have NEVER been available on LP, CD only. Rodney Crowell's masterpiece The Houston Kid and he and Vince Gill's wonderful album The Notorious Cherry Bombs being two examples.

@edcyn, at the risk of further inflaming the ire of fsonicsmith1 and wturkey, I have good news for you: Music Millennium has a copy of The Mountain (the title of the utter disaster that is the Steve Earle/Del McCoury Band album). It's a used copy, available for $5.00. I had them put it on hold (under my last name, message me for it). The clerk told me you can call and order it over the phone, their number being (503)231-8926.

@edcyn: Yeah, The Mountain LP is getting hard to find. The album was released on both CD and LP in 1999 on E-Squared Records (the label started by Earle and music businessman Jack Emerson)---I have both, and reissued on CD and LP in 2017 on Warner Brothers Records.

Music Millennium shows a copy of the WB CD in stock, but their website data and in-store stock often differ. I’ll give them a call after they open today (Sunday), and have them check the bin. I’ll let you know, and if you’re in luck you can order it online.

The show was definitely at The House Of Blues on Sunset, I remember it very well. Steve and all the Del McCoury Band members stood in a semi-circle around the single mic; when Steve was singing the verses he would move in closer to the mic; when the band sang harmonies (they are excellent harmonizers) he would move back in line with them. When an instrumentalist took a solo that player would move closer to the mic, returning to the line at it’s conclusion. Bluegrass players start young; by the time they are 12 years old they are playing at professional level. Marty Stuart joined Lester Flatt’s band when he was 14 tears old! That’s about the age when a lot of Rockers pick up a guitar for the first time, and aren't fully developed players for another ten years after that, if ever.

There is a lot of over-generalization in the article, not to mention outright misinformation (the writer is obviously unaware of Chad Kassem and his trio of LP businesses, as well as those of Speakers Corner, Blue Note, Intervention, VMP, dozens of other labels doing fantastic reissues and new releases). I can’t speak to the world-wide situation, but at Portland’’s oldest record store (Music Millennium, continuously open since 1969) LP’s (everyone is calling them "vinyls", which is not just silly, but inaccurate. LP’s are NOT made of vinyl, but rather Poly Vinyl Chloride---PVC. Am I being too literal? ;-) are selling very well.

I was a customer at MM in 1976-8, when the store inventory was predominantly LP’s (remember, this was pre-CD). By the time I briefly returned to Portland (2009-10), LP’s had been relegated to the mezzanine level of the store, the entire ground floor filled with CD’s. Today the mezzanine is all LP’s---the Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Country, Folk/Bluegrass, International, and Classical genres. The ground floor is now about 2/3 LP’s---Rock, Oldies, Soul/R & B, etc. genres, the other 1/3 CD’s.

Whenever I’m in the store (I was there just this afternoon, to watch Freedy Johnson do a live performance on the mezzanine, and have him autograph my copy of his new album he was promoting. Everyone in line was buying the LP, not a single CD.) the CD aisles are almost empty, all the customers in the LP aisles. Lots of parents and their kids---and of course youngish hipsters, all flipping through the LP’s in the bins.

In addition to Freedy’s latest, I bought the new Del McCoury (the Bluegrass singer who hit the big time when he joined Bill Monroe’s band in 1963. It was The Del McCoury band whom Steve Earle did his Bluegrass album with, and then toured. One of the best live shows I’ve seen & heard; Steve and the DMB, all playing acoustic instruments and singing into one large capsule mic, at The House Of Blues in Hollywood. Fantastic!), and used albums by J.J. Cale (Troubadour, 1st pressing on Shelter Records, $20), The Secret Sisters---produced by T Bone Burnett ($10, still in plastic bag), and for $5 each albums by Larry McNeely---a former sideman to Glen Campbell, Jerry Reed, John Denver, Roger Miller, Mac Davis, and Tennessee Ernie Ford, Kate & Anna McGarrigle---produced by Joe Boyd (Carthage Records), Kinky Friedman, Cheap Trick, The Rowans (a white label promo on Asylum Records!), Gary & Randy Scruggs---Earl’s sons, and a couple of Joe Ely’s (on Hightone Records---the greatly missed out-of-business Roots music label). In addition, in the mail on their way to me are the 4-LP Bootleg Volume 17 boxset by Dylan and a dozen new releases, ordered from various online LP retailers.

You Tube is full of videos by LP buyers sharing their passion for LP’s. As the old expression goes, don’t believe everything you read.