Russ Solomon, Founder of Tower Records, Dies at 92
- 6 years ago
Russ Solomon, Founder of Tower Records, Dies at 92
He was in one of our stores every week, literally, wherever he was — in L. A., in Atlanta when he lived in Atlanta, and in New York.”
In an interview for this obituary last September, Mr. Solomon recalled
that he opened the first Tower Records store in what had been his father’s drugstore with $5,000 in borrowed capital.
A high school dropout who sold used jukebox records at 16 in his father’s drugstore in Sacramento, Mr. Solomon was the driving force behind a sprawling enterprise
that began with one store in that city in 1960 and grew into a dominant competitor in music retailing with nearly 200 stores in 15 countries.
Yet many patrons said there was a clublike intimacy about the stores, where,
as Bruce Springsteen once put it, “everyone is your friend for 20 minutes.”
Open all year from 9 a.m. to midnight, staffed by hip salespeople who could answer almost any question about recordings, the stores became the haunts
of music aficionados scouring endless racks for rock, heavy metal, jazz, blues, standards, classicals, country-westerns and myriad other offerings.
“We wanted people in the store to run the store — they’re your strength,” Mr. Solomon said.
He was in one of our stores every week, literally, wherever he was — in L. A., in Atlanta when he lived in Atlanta, and in New York.”
In an interview for this obituary last September, Mr. Solomon recalled
that he opened the first Tower Records store in what had been his father’s drugstore with $5,000 in borrowed capital.
A high school dropout who sold used jukebox records at 16 in his father’s drugstore in Sacramento, Mr. Solomon was the driving force behind a sprawling enterprise
that began with one store in that city in 1960 and grew into a dominant competitor in music retailing with nearly 200 stores in 15 countries.
Yet many patrons said there was a clublike intimacy about the stores, where,
as Bruce Springsteen once put it, “everyone is your friend for 20 minutes.”
Open all year from 9 a.m. to midnight, staffed by hip salespeople who could answer almost any question about recordings, the stores became the haunts
of music aficionados scouring endless racks for rock, heavy metal, jazz, blues, standards, classicals, country-westerns and myriad other offerings.
“We wanted people in the store to run the store — they’re your strength,” Mr. Solomon said.