This post was originally written and published by Egon on September 23, 2008.

I chose to attend college in Nashville, Tennessee because I knew that I’d be able to spend my spare time searching for rare records in a city where competition was nil. Well, that’s not exactly true – there were really ahead-of-the-curve collectors, like Chad Phillips, who I would later collaborate with on the Kid Robot Madvillain and Quasimoto toys for Stones Throw, and there was Doyle Davis, who hosted a great show on Vanderbilt’s WRVU FM called “D-Funk,” and there was Count Bass D who, besides Doyle, was probably the only person I had met to date that had found a copy of David Axelrod’s Songs of Innocence in the field. But, with the knowledge I’d received from a great many teachers in the Northeast prior to my arrival, I felt uniquely equipped to search out, say, regionally released 45s by the likes of Joe Lee and Eddie Bo in 1997.

And there were just so many places to get the goods: the rarer of the two issues of The Cult’s The Mail Must Go Through literally fell into my hands at Phonoluxe Records. Phillip, if I remember his name correctly, threw it there, telling me that he knew it was in demand in Japan, a scenario that seemed preposterous to me back then. Private pressed (we didn’t call ’em that back then, but whatever) rural rock records with decidedly awesome covers of Average White Band tunes stacked up against deep-groove Blue Note LPs at the Great Escape on Broadway, where Doyle, the chain’s manager, often showed me the latest scores before they were filed into the new arrival bins.

But the spot of spots was Lawrence Record Shop, which we all called Lawrence Brothers, in downtown Nashville. Downtown Nashville was nothing like it is today. It wasn’t hip in any manner. Next to venerable country repository Ernest Tubbs, near the juke joints and the barbecue stands, down the street from the great food emporium Arnold’s, stood this library of 45s and LPs by soul, funk, bluegrass, rock, country and jazz artists. The story went, as I recall, that Daddy Lawrence bought the building in the early 1960s and filled it up with whatever goods he could find. As record stores and distributors went out of business, he filled up the basement and upper two floors with boxes upon boxes of dead-stock vinyl. The store front contained bin after bin chock full of 45s, each with a location number penciled on a dividing card. If you found something you liked, there was a good chance that there were hundreds more copies upstairs.

Thus, by the time Paul Lawrence took over the store’s day to day operations with his brother Ted and wife Paulette, and he lowered the price of each 45 to three dollars a piece, we didn’t hesitate to buy hundreds of copies of James K-Nine’s “Live It Up” on Federal – right around the time that Dante Carfagna got his first copy and called the drummer, James Black, “Mr. SP 1200,” as fitting a description of Black’s straight-ahead funk if I’ve ever heard one. Dozens of Kay Robinson’s “The Lord Will Make A Way Some How” came down from upstairs, alongside a copy or two of then-rarity like the Overnight Low on Deluxe or a cut that eventually made it to my Function Underground anthology of Black and Brown American rock, “The Siesta Is Over.” (more…)

If you’re looking for something to take up 30 minutes of your time and you’ve already rewatched every episode of The Office on Netflix (including “Diversity Day,” twice) then you should take some time to get into Deep Disco with Egon’s mix, now up at Spotify. It’s a live mix of tracks from our Soul-Cal anthology and related music, some of which hasn’t made it up on to digital distribution services, and some of which we’ve been trying to get sorted out for reissue for some time.

Egon, holding the Universoul’s funk killer “New Generation.” This and hundreds of other songs from all eras and all genres are up in his Spotify playlist. Weekly – sometimes daily – updates. Photo by Eilon Paz for Dust and Grooves.

Egon’s culled and updated his Spotify playlist – Now Again – Egon’s Selections. It’s now at around 40 hours and counting: Egon updates it on an average twice week…

So stay tuned: it should take the pressure off trying to figure out the best of the most obscure tracks in the billions of tracks now available at the streaming behemoth. At least in one music fan’s perspective.

by Eothen “Egon” Alapatt, with additional text edited from an essay by Lance Scott Walker.

Drummer, bandleader and activist William George “Bubbha” Thomas died at his son William’s home on Saturday March 28th, 2020. He was 82 years old. His son said that the cause was heart failure; Thomas had been in failing health for some time and hadn’t played his drums in years. But his mind was sharp until the end, and he was surrounded by music. William said that Bubbha passed on while listening to “All In Love Is Fair” from the fourth album in his classic period, Country Fried Chicken (Spotify), streaming on the internet. Yesterday was a sad day for me, but that moment gave me a feeling of peace: some years prior, Bubbha had called me, deep into our friend-and mentorship and business relationship, and told me that he wasn’t getting younger, and he wanted all of his music available, for all to hear –  and fast. I had held off on that commitment for years, as I knew how daunting of a task it was going to be. But I’m glad, on that day, that I said yes. The resulting box set, which I worked with Bubbha to issue as Creative Music: The Complete Works, came out in full last year, and coincided with the wide release of his catalog, which is of the highest echelon of jazz music. (more…)

It will come as no surprise that Rappcats will no longer be opening up for Egon’s pop-up record shop on the weekend of March 21-22. We will announce a new date as soon as we can.

That said, we’re making the best of it for those stuck at home: we’ve assembled a limited amount of 3 LP grab bags and we’re offering them for sale online, on a first come first serve basis. Each grab bag comes with three pieces of vinyl from Egon’s collection. All genres.

DETAILS VIA RAPPCATS: EGON’S VINYL GRAB BAG (more…)