There was a time many years ago when exploring new albums meant going to TG&Y at Indian mall, or perhaps KATZ at Caraway Plaza and perusing the bins containing albums. The tiny and sparse inventory was selected and creatively managed by some middle aged clerk in a back room who enjoyed listening to regional classics on a local AM band radio. He based his inventory selections equally on his personal tastes and recommendations from corporate buyers.
This was unfortunate because by 1971, many of us had discovered that FM-100 in Memphis played something different. While the clerk at TG&Y listened to The Archies and BJ Thomas, we were rocking to a whole different universe of sound. In Jonesboro’s quiet, reasonable and calm Monophonic AM world, we were rocking in mind blowing FM stereo to tunes that were changing the world. We could hear it on the radio, but we couldn’t find it in the stores.
For a long time, for those of us not yet old enough to drive to Memphis, our one opportunity to acquire the tunes we heard on the FM100 was to join one of those record clubs. You see, you could buy the records in Memphis, but if your sole means of transportation was a StingRay bicycle, then Memphis wasn’t really an option. That made your sole option the record clubs. Remember them? You could get 12 albums for three cents each if you agreed to buy 10 more albums in the next 12 months at their low club prices. Of course the ‘low club prices’ turned out to be regular retail plus shipping and handling, and the list of available albums was essentially the same as what was available at TG&Y. Worse yet, the list of ‘Hot New Albums’ did not change from month to month. I bought the crappy albums to use as ‘mystery Santa’ gifts at Christmas. It was expensive, but it satisfied my commitment to buy more albums. My grandmother actually did like Englebert Humperdink.
At some point some Van Spence, Mike Cobb, Bobby Flye and Dennis Rodgers were fed up. They were done with having to go to Memphis and hit Poplar Tunes to get their music fix. From a musical perspective, our time in the musical desert ended when these guys scratched together a few bucks, said their prayers and decided to open a little record shop in Jonesboro stocking the stuff that we were listening to on FM100.
Enter White Dog. The first place I remember White Dog being located was in a little office park just across from where the Coleman BBQ place was way out on East Matthews just past Caraway Road. Mutual of Omaha was in that office park too, but I don’t know why I remember that. I rode my bike there in late 1972 or early 73. From Birdland, I went up by the U-shaped tree, cut across a small piece of the back nine of the country club, and came out on Caraway by the what is now the Army Reserve Center. It was a short ride down the hill to the intersection with Matthews. I hung a right onto Matthews, and rode about a quarter mile to the office park. I had to search for the place. It wasn’t well marked. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d never find it. There were no large signs to identify the shop. The only sign was the small one that was painted on the door. It said ‘White Dog’. It was a tiny spot. I bought George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” album.
Stepping into the world of music that White Dog introduced was as dramatic as stepping out of the black and white world of the Kansas prairie and into the full blown techni-color Land of Oz complete with tornadoes and a guy behind the curtain. On one hand, there were no singing dwarfs and no yellow brick road, but on the other hand, the record bins didn’t overflow with latest hits from Donnie Osmond or Tony Orlando. No, these bins were stocked with hard core rock and roll. They had the bands that we all heard on FM100. These bands didn’t just break the ice, they made waves. If Lady Gaga seems shocking today, imagine David Bowie or Alice Cooper to the average Arkie kid in 1972. In the early 70s, The Beatles were gone, but The Stones were in top shape. The Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker were inventing Southern Rock. Led Zeppelin was pushing the envelope in so many ways. Deep Purple was smoking on the water, Uriah Heep was figuring out heavy metal and Pink Floyd was getting stoned. Black Oak was rocking and still roaming the streets of Jonesboro. The Guess Who made some great tunes. Did you know Rod Stewart really wanted to be a soccer player and Eric Clapton was a god? If you read Circus Magazine and The Rolling Stone you would know this. You could get them both at White Dog.
Before long, success moved White Dog from the tiny spot in the office park into the little strip mall on Matthews. They got a new space where French’s Sporting Goods used to be, and pretty close to Proctor and Ranson’s barber shop. By now they weren’t just selling 45s, albums and 8-Tracks. As their success grew, they added all sorts of stuff. You didn’t have to drive to Memphis to buy concert tickets anymore. You could get them at White Dog. You could get a really cool, environmentally sound ‘Disc Cleaner’ there. A disc cleaner was a piece of walnut wood (sustainable sourced, no less) with a padded swath of fabric. You would apply cleaner fluid to the ‘Disc Cleaner’, and clean your album before you placed the needle. Cleaner record equals cleaner sound. Rock on.
In time White Dog added more space and even more merchandise. They had a million different kinds speakers, turntables and all sorts of music equipment. You could buy receivers that could pick up alien transmissions. You could buy ‘equalizers’ and amps. All the stuff that White Dog sold was top of the line. You just could not get a Craig car stereo, or a set of Advent Speakers anywhere else. You could buy a Panasonic Stereo system complete with an 8-Track player/recorder from Sears, but no one there could tell you how to use it. The guys at White Dog could show you why you needed one.
In the Mid-1970’s, White Dog is where I realized that the mountain of money I had spent on 8-Track tapes was for naught. There was a better technology that not only sounded better, but it didn’t eat your tapes. The Cassette had arrived.
When was the last time you went to a store just to see what they had? New music was released every week, and in the 1970s the variety of music was so great, and the quality of it all was so high that a visit to White Dog at least once a week was mandatory lest you fall behind. You could spend a whole afternoon just casually going through the record bins examining the album covers and reading the notes on the back. If you’ve ever wondered how us old farts can remember who played what on which obscure tracks on some forgotten 1970s album, it’s because we spent hours gazing at the cover art, and pondering the bands who made the music.
I don’t listen to much current music these days. Maybe it’s because the album covers don’t seem to exist anymore. If you don’t have an album cover, how are you supposed to know who played harmonica on the third track? Maybe I just don’t like the artists. Singing with a southern accent doesn’t make it southern rock, and having purple hair won’t get you on a flight with Major Tom. I don’t want to even acknowledge K-pop exists. For the record, Taylor Swift isn’t country. Never was, never will be. Just wanted to put that out there.
Over the course of many years, we have seen a lot of changes. As we age, more and more of our youth seems to drift into the realm of fading memories, wrinkled, folded ticket stubs and yellowing photos. When I do occasionally to listen to something current, the thing that strikes me isn’t that I’m not ‘in tune with today’s music’. No, I could always appreciate quality music even if it weren’t music of the genre of my choice. No, I can tell shit from shinola, and most of what’s out there today isn’t shinola.
Of course, it could be that there is good music out there today and the reason we can’t find it is because White Dog isn’t.
Get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
Leave a Reply