I’ve probably written about this before, but I was thinking today about all the good records that have passed through my hands and moved on, maybe even ending up in platter heaven. (Which creates the question; do bad records go in the other direction?)
I guess it started when I ran into a 50-year-old picture of my Dad, one in which he appears to have a record player growing out of the top of his head. I have to admit that I’m not 
sure I remember that particular machine — a cheap Symphonic portable — but there’s at least one reason for that. (Other than my forgetfulness in general, which is always applicable.) It was about that time that I would have been all wrapped up in trying to put together my own component hi-fi system, so this little piddling thing would have been beneath my dignity.
Like most of the things I tackled as a teenager, assembling a really good system was probably out of my reach. Still, I did manage to cobble together some stuff and pretend that it qualified as honest-to-goodness, genuine high-fidelity. I also began building a collection of record albums, one that I would add to for years to come.
Unfortunately, as the decades passed and the music industry changed from eight-tracks to cassettes to CDs, I did what many others did — I gradually replaced my records with CDs, and eventually sold my old platters in a yard sale. Sigh.
One of those was a big double-album, one of my earliest and most expensive purchases. Now long gone — but there is an up side. If I hadn’t converted to digital then I wouldn’t be able to do this:
Tommy Dorsey & Orchestra – “Boogie Woogie”
Geezer Music Club 