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7. The Great Convergence: Pop Tuner' One-Stop
- University of Illinois Press
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7 The Great Convergence: Pop Tunes’ One-Stop It was an all-too-typical muggy Memphis summer day that July 11, 1946, when John Novarese and Joe Cuoghi spotted an ad in the Commercial Appeal that immediately caught their attention. A record store, Shirley’s Poplar Tunes at 306 Poplar Avenue, was for sale, so they went out “the very next day and bought it.”1 It was a fateful decision. What John and Joe renamed the Poplar Tunes Record Store (almost immediately abbreviated by Memphis fans to “Pop Tunes”)wouldsoonbecomecozilyensconcedintheMemphispantheon of musical history. It acquired that unique distinction because from its beginning it was much more than just a record store and favorite haunt of Dewey Phillips and Elvis Presley (a sign prominently displayed in front of the store once proudly boasted “Elvis Never Left Our Building”). From its inception, Pop Tunes performed a number of jobs simultaneously , servicing a variety of markets and needs for Memphis and the Mid-South. First, in an era before the proliferation of chain stores it was one of the earliest postwar retail outlets exclusively designed for the sale of records. It was no longer necessary to go to Grant’s five-and-dime or Schwab’s Department Store (or, for that matter, to the grocery or drugstore ) to buy vinyl music. Second, it also served a wholesale function as a convenient “one-stop” for jukebox operators and small mom-and-pop record stores, making it one of the largest wholesale and retail record distributors in the South. Finally, the store’s most significant contribution to Memphis’s music history was perhaps completely inadvertent. While trying to fulfill the needs of local jukebox dealers by affording them an easily accessible, ready-to-use service, Pop Tunes attracted not only Dewey Phillips but also a number of other Memphians who would 07.96-105_Cant.indd96 2/8/051:54:20PM The Great Convergence 97 soon make over the nation’s record industry. These people were already turned on to a new sound commonly known to blacks as rhythm and blues and soon to be known to white America as rock ’n’ roll.2 It all began with that critically important postwar musical apparatus known as the jukebox, which allowed listeners to drop a coin into a slot and hear their favorite record. The jukebox, which was primarily responsible for assisting the record industry’s resurgence following World War II, spread prolifically and soon became as prevalent in taverns and drugstores as it was in dance halls and juke joints.3 Servicing the records for jukeboxes soon became a cottage industry in Memphis. Before Pop Tunes provided a “one-stop” service, dealers had to go to the various record distributors across town to acquire the latest material. “Most one-stops today are wholesale, not retail,” Pop Tunes co-founder John Novarese remembers. “Back then, a man who operated jukeboxes—say he had twenty or thirty of them around town—he would have to make five or six stops to get the latest records from the distributors .” With a one-stop, a dealer like Southern Amusement Company, the major jukebox operator in the Memphis area, could stop by Joe and John’s new place and pick up everything needed at one time.4 More important, after the war Pop Tunes’s one-stop not only serviced dealers but also attracted people like Dewey Phillips who were interested in what dealers were buying. Because Pop Tunes carried all the latest new R&B records, Dewey—already seduced by the new sound—had been dropping by “almost every day” since starting at Grant’s. After he joined WHBQ he continued to be “in there [Pop Tunes] a minimum of at least three or four times a week, looking for the new releases.”5 Dewey was always anxious to hear the latest releases but especially eagertocheckoutthenewestrecordsofblackperformers .Bythistime—the late 1940s—some blacks who enjoyed the luxury of appearing on major labels were frequently being aired on southern radio stations. Almost all who did were the crossovers—artists whose enormous popularity crossed over to a broader white mainstream audience. Already household names—as well known to Memphis audiences as to the nation at large—the stars’ fame rested more on their appeal to whites than to blacks. Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Nat “King” Cole, Sarah Vaughn, the Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the Mills Brothers, Ethel Waters, and a host of other black...