Vinyl answer

Rich Rosen is crazy about old doo-wop records

Rich Rosen knew he'd been bitten hard by the collecting bug when, one day in 1974, he found himself in a secret underground passage in a New Jersey record shop, wearing a miner's hat in search of rare records.

"So I'm looking around with this miner's hat with the light on it, and there's this stove down there, pulled away from the wall," Rosen says. "I shine my light down there, and it reflects, like there's something down there. I put my hand in, expecting to get bit by a rat or something. Instead, I pull out a stack of records."

Rosen struck black gold. Among the treasures he'd unearthed was the acetate master of The Five Sharps' "Stormy Weather." The ultra-rare 78, released in 1952, is considered the holy grail of doo-wop; what Rosen had in his trembling hands was the plastic and metal plate that had created that fabled record. After gathering his composure, he carried his precious find to the front in a box with other finds, prepared to pay handsomely.

The clerk didn't have a clue: Gimme 20 bucks for the whole box, she told him. Today, Rosen estimates the value of the Sharps master at $20,000.

It's just one of the stories that Rich Rosen, owner of Wax Trax Records, tells on a recent afternoon at his Decatur Boulevard store that's part shop, part shrine, part museum. The rabid record collector is a garrulous former Brooklynite who's dedicated his life--and much of his family's life--to finding rare 45s, 78s and LPs in his favored genre of doo-wop. Specifically, white doo-wop.

He's ditched family vacations in Hawaii to search out leads. Taken road trips to pore through the decrepit homes of "derelict collectors"--old men who sloppily stockpile records out of a pack-rat impulse. He's negotiated the cobweb-clogged basement of L.A. doo-wop legend Bobby Day's house. He's cleaned out whole label back catalogs in New York, buying tens of thousands of records to the tune of a few hundred dollars. He's haggled over rarities with an aged Juggy Murray, producer for Ike and Tina Turner (when Rosen wouldn't meet Murray's $1,000 price for a stack of vinyl, Murray kicked him out with characteristic cool: "Then move, baby, mooove"). In warm letters from overseas, Japanese collectors who frequent his store have dubbed Rosen the "God of White Vocal Group Collection."

Collection indeed: Between his store and his home--a mysterious sanctuary to which only the closest confidantes are allowed entry--he has about half a million records. Of the "street corner harmony" genre he considers his specialty--that includes R&B and doo-wop--he has more than 30,000 records.

"I like the four- or five-man harmony, the way they chime off, the sound of four guys singing as one," he says. "I can just play those records again and again." (And does, on his Monday night doo-wop radio show on KLAV 1230-AM).

As for his wife, she loves the music too--but can do without the obsession. "It's all about collecting with him. If he gets a call at midnight about some rare record, he's gone," says his wife, Sunny. "Everything to Rich is about music. Everything."--Andrew Kiraly