Listen: Cottage For Sale / Carmen McRae & Herbie Mann
Cottage
During the mid 90′s, I spent a ton of time in Seattle. We nearly bought a place there in fact. They were almost giving away 60′s houses back then. In one way, it might have been a great move. I could have bought even more records, and just left them in the new place. Because let me tell you, they were nearly giving away records then too.
Golden Oldies was the local chain that sold only used vinyl. There were like five stores in the greater Seattle area. And the main one, on NE 45th Street, was my shrine. I spent hours in the place.
Everything was beautifully organized, basically by genre. The jazz singles took the least time to scour. Not because of quantity. No, there were a ton. But they were all 50¢, tops. I bulked out a massive jazz singles library by default. Grabbed everything remotely interesting. Never left a Verve, Prestige, Atlantic or Blue Note single behind. And the jukebox worn copies, loved those too.
Combine that with a seemingly bitchy drug and alcohol abusing dame, doing lounge covers from the 50′s or 60′s, and I’m grabbing a copy. Not that Carmen McRae was necessarily any of those, but I can fantasize and did.
‘Cottage For Sale’, on Atlantic, black vinyl turning white from years in the jukebox of an old man’s bar for 50¢.
Sold.