Dr. Music Records

“Well you can call me Dr. Music. Music is my name…”

Eric Bloom sang those lines forty-three years ago on the album Mirrors by Blue Öyster Cult. If you go to Fairhope, Alabama, and drive north on S. Section St., just past Greer’s Market and look to the right, you’ll see a store by the same name. It’s been there for twenty-five years. I’d bet when you walk in, you’d find a well-kept copy of Mirrors, along with shelves full of records ready to be explored and adopted. You’ll also find racks of vintage turntables and speakers. Dr. Music is an audio lover’s treasure chest.

“We have extensive knowledge about music, audio systems, turntables, vinyl care, and troubleshooting,” store owner Wade Wellborn says. It’s exactly what you would hope for in a store called “Dr. Music”. Have a question about where to start your punk collection – the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, or The Clash? Ask Dr. Music. On what album did Tommy Bolin replace Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore? Ask Dr. Music.

What about the best path to a great listening experience?

“A cheap needle is never going to sound good,” Wellborn would smile. “Spend a bit of money on your turntable.” Sage advice coming from a shop owner who has seen music trends come and go over the last three decades, and also some tough times. “I’m proud that my original goal to share my musical passion with customers has carried us through the tough times of 2004-2010 and has contributed to our success today.”

A significant part of that success is perseverance. The store has weathered it all. When CDs dominated, Dr. Music prevailed. With the advent of streaming music, and its ability to exist in all places at once, it’s the physical locality of vinyl that keeps Wellborn’s customers coming back. “Playing a record is an organic, deliberate act, and a listener is likely to listen to the entire record, not just a song,” Wellborn explains. “Going to record stores is an amazing asset to a musical journey. Analog formats are much less fatiguing to our ears.”

As well as being an “amazing asset”, it’s also an avenue of surprises that borderlines serendipity. Like the time a customer discovered a 78 rpm record in the back of a 1950s console stereo he’d once purchased at a yard sale. The desire to restore it had long since passed, and the console was on its way to the dump. That 78 was a rare Blind Willie Johnson record. Johnson was a master of the bottleneck slide technique. The man took it to the only place he could think of – Dr. Music. Wellborn remembers the moment fondly. “Another customer overheard the conversation, asked me if he could make an offer for it, and I brokered $1500.00  sale.”

I’d like to think that somewhere up there, Blind Willie must have grinned ear to ear to know his gospel-inspired blues was still reaching people thanks to places like Dr. Music.