Spinning the vinyl

I bought myself a record player and two bookshelf speakers. That may seem old fashioned in this techno age of playing music from a 6 inch phone but it all got started because my Great Aunt Betty passed away.

Betty Marie Gurden passed away at 91 from dementia related complications. She was the Tasmanian Devil, fierce and smart, never taking no for an answer, single handedly running the annual Gurden reunion until she was 85. And you better not cross her or at least, have the sense to stay out of her way. She loved her family, Tom Jones, Tiger Baseball and stray cats. She lived on 8 mile in Detroit in the 60’s and didn’t leave when the riots devastated the city. I loved going to her house to visit because we got to go to a Deli, a Tiger game and she had a laundry shoot from the bathroom to the basement which I thought was the coolest thing ever. However, I did not know that we shared a love for Opera until she died.

Family members were allowed to take a few mementos from her house as they were cleaning it out and preparing to sell it. As with estate sales, I always feel like a voyeur, rifling through the collections of people laid to rest, piles of clothing, books, paintings. It reminds me of a body in a casket, the physical is present and the soul has passed to another atmosphere. I had decided to take her record player, a KLH Model Twenty, made in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 60’s. The speakers I left as they were too big for my apartment. Then I found the promised land, her record collection. Pristine boxed sets of Operas, Glenn Gould, Leonard Bernstein, Brandenburg Concertos, and of course, Tom Jones. I took as many as I could carry without feeling guilty.

I asked a few people about helping me with the record player, checking it out and seeing if it still was functional but the lack of speakers was a problem. The connections were different for a player that age so you really needed the original speakers. Dilemma, as I possessed these beautiful records so I started doing some research, set a budget for myself to purchase a new record player and bookshelf speakers. My choice was a Audio Technica record player with direct drive and Edifier bookshelf speakers. The journey has begun but not without help from Karl.

Karl is a huge music fan and audiophile. I have the pleasure of working with him most days. He is passionate, enthusiastic and was willing to help me set up the player. It was like Christmas Day, opening each box and carefully taking out each piece as we assembled the record player. As any good audiophile, he explained the function of each knob and switch, making sure it was level, jumping up and down on the floor a little to adjust the weight and we were ready. He said he loved the manual return because it made you “interact” with the music. Rhaposdy in Blue, directed by Leonard Bernstein, taken carefully out of its’ pristine but brittle sleeve, waiting for the iconic opening trill and nothing. Some sound but even using the remote to turn it up didn’t help. So we did what anyone does for a last resort, we read the instructions! Apparently there is a switch on the player for speakers or for USB recording to a computer. So with one flick of a switch we had sound, beautiful sound!

I think of my Aunt Betty when I play my (her) glorious records and wonder why we never talked about Opera. We could have gone to the Detroit Opera Theatre, sitting in the dark, waiting for the first sounds of strings and reveling in a soprano’s aria. I’m hoping the music reaches her and she knows how very much I appreciate the chance to honor her every time I place a record on the platter and the needle touches down,