43
Underdog owner savors sounds from vintage vinyl
Photo
Underdog Records owner Ron “Sonny” Hrehovcik displays four of the thousands of albums he has in his store. His assortment of records ranges from Frank Sinatra to Ozzy Osbourne.
Photo
Underdog Records survived both the CD and now the MP3 era of music. Besides this Beatles album, owner Ron “Sonny” Hrehovcik has several of their rare mono-recorded albums ranging in value from $20 to $100.
By Robert Guttersohn
Hubbard
Music’s relics — records — fill Ron “Sonny” Hrehovcik’s Underdog Records store.
Ask why he sells records, and the 60-year-old part-time musician, full-time salesman will tell you it’s not because of the way they sound.
“Music is music,” Hrehovcik said. “If you blindfold me, I couldn’t tell you the difference between a record, a radio or CD.”
Hrehovcik loves the artwork on an album cover and a record’s durability.
“You know, years from now, they’ll still work,” he said.
The name for the store, located in a small storefront at 6181 Youngstown-Hubbard Road, has its own story.
Why Underdog?
“Because we had $2,000 when we started,” he said, standing next to a shelf filled with an assortment of records from Frank Sinatra to Ozzy Osbourne. “We were the underdogs of cash.”
The name stuck, and the store has its own mascot – the 1960s-era Underdog cartoon superhero makes sporadic appearances throughout the store, including a massive poster of the character that Hrehovcik’s friends bought him when he suffered a heart attack five years ago.
His most obscure and valuable records don’t seem out of the ordinary at first. In the middle of the single-room store is a glass case lined with popular Beatles records ranging from $20 to a $100 Rubber Soul album. The rarity, he said, is that the albums enclosed in glass were recorded in mono (short for monophonic) – a catch for record collectors because most albums were released in stereo.
During the week, Hrehovcik plays guitar in several bands with genres as diverse as his record collection: R&B bands to classic rock bands. He’s played the guitar since he was 15, influenced by watching the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and repeatedly listening to favorite 45 rpm records.
His love for music, mixed with his desire to work for himself, led him to start Underdog Records in 1975.
It began with a South Avenue store in Boardman selling new records and spread to six different locations across the Mahoning Valley. But when the steel mills began closing and the music industry quickly transitioned to CDs, the change forced Hrehovcik to whittle his record business to the one store in Hubbard.
It has survived the CD era comfortably as a seller of musical antiques on vinyl. (He also has a case of CDs for sale).
While talking music, he pulled out a Thomas Edison wax-cylinder record and set it next to one of his LPs and talked about the evolution of the industry.
“I think [records] are an antique now,” Hrehovcik said.
He travels to different Rust-Belt cities and attends record shows, buying and selling. “A lot of younger kids that are musicians go after the older stuff now,” he said.
Recording has also gone from the studio to the home.
“When I started playing, you could work your way up,” he said. “These kids don’t have money. But then again if you do your research, you can find a lot of musicians on YouTube. So there are advantages. You eliminate the middle man.”
Hrehovcik doesn’t see retirement anytime soon. He sets his own hours and gets to talk music with other passionate collectors.
“That’s the great part — when someone comes in here, and we can talk about music for hours,” he said.