Nov 11, 2017 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read

Rummaging through a thrift store’s record bin many years ago, Greg Anderson came across a “best-of” LP by jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, which he bought for the princely sum of a quarter.

“The first song I ever heard from his was ‘Alabama,'” he recalled. “I’ll never, ever forget listening to that. It was on my grandma’s white hi-fi set. You had to wait five seconds for the static.”

And then came the strains of Coltrane’s heart-rending elegy for the young victims of a Civil Rights-era church bombing, at once providing Anderson with an enduring appreciation for a different style of music.

He hopes to help others experience similar listening epiphanies after they visit Vinyl Remains, his new store in Dormont.

“I love turning people on to records,” he said. “I love when I see people pick up a record, and they’re so excited that they found it.”

Music enthusiasts who grew up, say, in the ’70s certainly know that feeling, but it’s a new one for an era when just about everything is readily available for download or streaming.

“Younger people are coming here,” Anderson reported, “and it’s blowing my mind.”

He and his wife, Jennifer, moved to Mt. Lebanon last year from New York City. There, he operated a record store in Manhattan’s East Village from 1998-2002.

“It was dirty. You just had to try to outdo every store,” he said, as far as providing the most esoteric of inventory for a customer base of many tastes.

As you might imagine from the locale, Anderson has some prime anecdotal material from his experiences.

“We used to buy reggae straight off the van of Coxsone Dodd, the guy who owned Studio One,” he said about the late Jamaican producer whose label carried Bob Marley’s first hit record. “He was in the passenger’s seat.”

Another label specialized in soul, funk and hip-hop, perhaps not under the most legitimate of circumstances.

“They would sell it out of their car,” Anderson recalled. “They would come by, and we would just scoop, scoop, scoop, scoop.”

Eventually, the scenario changed.

“The last sort of year with the store, it was getting harder to compete, and we weren’t super-technical and up-to-date,” he said. “We were still getting great stuff, but it became more of a hangout.”

The Andersons subsequently opened in bar in Brooklyn, which they operated until 2016, and they still have a restaurant there called Mother’s, not far from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

“It’s still a ton of work, even though we don’t live there,” Greg said. “Jen does it from here.”

They decided to move after visiting friend Brian Wolfe, a musician who previously had relocated with his family from New York to Mt. Lebanon. The Andersons are enjoying the transition.

“It’s the quality of life,” Greg explained. “You just feel better, and it’s easier for the kids to do activities here. They have neighbors, and all of that kind of middle-of-the-road American stuff that makes life easier.”

In the meantime, Jennifer has started a custom tie-dye business, I Would Dye For You, to complement her husband’s pursuits.

“The store here basically is centered around its size,” he said. “I wanted a small store so that I could carefully curate it and not have the bins full of stuff that you’re going to see a year later, or everywhere else.”

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/vinylremainspg13.