Store owners acquire coveted record collection

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

In an ideal world, people’s passion would dovetail with their job.

Jim and Darren Blase, the brothers who own Shake It Records in Northside, are two of the lucky ones. They share not only a love for music but are keenly interested in history, especially the rich recording legacy of Greater Cincinnati.

The planets recently aligned for the Blases when they acquired more than 20,000 records owned by Peter Sheinfeld of Cambridge, Mass., a renowned collector who died last spring at 68.

“This was a beautifully well-maintained collection,” Darren said. “It was very focused: R&B and blues from the late 1920s to 1965. It wasn’t just 78s. There were file cabinets of 45s; there were 1,200 albums [LPs]. He had an entire floor of just records, everything in [floor to ceiling shelves]. This is what this guy did for 50 years.”

The brothers haven’t been at it for half a century, but they know their history and quickly realized the opportunity to bid on the collection was unique.

“This helps us move forward with the goal we have of always making the store more interesting,” Jim said. “This is the history of American music almost from the time records were invented. Certainly rock ’n’ roll. All of these records have a story.”

Those stories might resonate with a generation of music lovers that has embraced vinyl LPs but might not have a clue about 78s, which contained one song on each side of a disc that turned at 78 revolutions per minute on a turntable. Technology intervened in the late ’40s when 45s were introduced by record companies.

“That was the beginning of the demise of the 78,” Jim said. “Why have a big platter when you can have a small one?”

The big platters didn’t disappear overnight, however.

“As far as black artists go, 78s stayed around longer because of the economic reality that African-Americans didn’t have the money to switch to a new format,” Darren said. “There is a hard finish, somewhere around 1961 is the end of it. Most of the 78s [in the collection] are through ’57; then the 45s pick up where that leaves off.”

The sheer volume of the collection is unusual, but the fact that it was nurtured with such care is what struck not only the Blases but others as well. Barrence Whitfield, the singer who leads the Boston-based R&B band Barrence Whitfield & the Savages, spoke almost reverently of the time he spent at Sheinfeld’s home.

“Peter Sheinfeld was astute about blues, jazz, swing, R&B and soul,” said Whitfield, who admits he has pared his collection over the years. “He had everything in alphabetical order by label. There were labels I had never seen in my life or that I had only seen in books – rare labels. But having them in my hands, looking at them, was definitely a thrill. It was not only like being a child in a candy store – it was like looking at history.

“I was there one day for maybe 31/2 to 4 hours. I went through some of the 45s, but it was just too overwhelming. I just looked at one particular section of Gordy [a subsidiary of Berry Gordy’s Motown label], and it was enough for me.”

The Blases are slowly unpacking the boxes that filled a 16-foot U-Haul truck for the trip to Cincinnati and are discovering new treasures.