Unreleased disco and boogie from Dayton, Ohio’s Record Player: their full album, recorded in the late ‘70s, and unreleased until now. Contains oversized booklet detailing the Record Player’s story and the history of the Ohio music scenes that allowed for their rise.
BUY THE LP NOW AT BANDCAMP» Record Player – Free Your Mind
In 1979, Record Player privately pressed and issued a solitary 45 on their Gem City Records imprint in Dayton, Ohio. Though they had recorded a host of other songs, and were on the verge of signing to a major label, their trajectory stalled and the band splintered by the early 1980s. In the early 2000s, Record Player principle Charles Jackson surfaced with their unreleased songs. To date, only two Record Player songs have been reissued, as part of Now-Again’s long-running Soul Cal series. Now, the entirety of their oeuvre is presented here as Free Your Mind, and their story detailed in words by Bret Sjerven in the oversized booklet contained within.
From Bret Sjerven’s liner notes:
“(By 1984) the principal members of Record Player (had) mainly stepped away from music. Lamar remains close to the music scene as a photographer, while Charles Jackson has continued to sing and write while maintaining a career as a security guard. Delbert Jones continues to write but has focused on screen plays and script writing.
The remarkable story of Record Player could have ended there if it wasn’t for chance discovery in a Dayton record store. Now Again’s Eothen Alapatt had already met and begun working with Carl Cowen, a former member of the legendary Dayton Sidewinders and owner/proprietor of Carlco Records. While compiling materials for the release of the Sidewinders material on Carlco, Mr. Cowen brought Alapatt to a local record shop where a picture on the wall caught Alapatt’s eye, a band shot of Stone Coal White.
The appearance of Stone Coal White’s portrait proved good fortune for the hunt. Amidst the random 45s and LPs, Alapatt pulled a copy of Record Player’s lone single on Gem City, “Free Your Mind” backed with “Nursery Rhymes.”
Research into Record Player led Alapatt to Charles Jackson, who was one of the last members of the band remaining in Los Angeles. Jackson provided tapes to “Free Your Mind” and “Your Fantasy,” which were released as a 12-inch on Alapatt’s Soul Cal label in 2006.
Nearly twenty years later, Alapatt received the blessing and the music to release the majority of Record Player’s catalog on a full LP for the first time, thus preserving this deserving group’s legacy as one of Dayton’s best.”