Down a rutted dirt road off the High Road to Taos, we were surprised to find a collection of 1,200 albums comprised of some of the best jazz, blues, and soul albums of the 60’s and 70’s.  The collector, who passed away a couple years ago, was a harmonica player in a local band, but hailed originally from Minnesota. 

We’ve seen a lot of collections over the years, but rarely have we seen one with so much… good taste! The titles include every Howlin’ Wolf album, the best John Coltrane records, every classic Nina Simone, original Etta James albums, dozens of Blue Note, Impulse, Cobblestone and Prestige/Bluesville label albums, and SO much more! While some of the sleeves bear ringwear and even occasionally some seam splits, the vinyl itself is in remarkably great condition.

Here are the albums that we’re putting up on the wall today from the collection: an original 1971 pressing of Baby Huey, the killer funky soul on Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom label; an original 1964 pressing of Horace Silver‘s classic Song For My Father on Blue Note; an original pressing of Etta James‘ classic Call My Name; Allen Toussaint‘s killer 1970 selt-titled Bayou Funk release; the first pressing of Pharaoh Sanders‘ classic Karma from 1969; A 1972 gatefold pressing of John Lee Hooker‘s It Serve You Right To Suffer on Impulse;
An original mono deep groove pressing of Irma Thomas‘ Take a Look (sadly not “2 for $1” anymore!); a 1970 pressing of Anthony Williams‘ free jazz classic Spring on Blue Note; a nice 1960’s mono of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue; a nice 1966 press of Lee Morgan‘s classic Search for the New Land; and finally (for now!) a 1st pressing of Doug & Jean Carn‘s Spirit of the New Land!

That’s far from all– we’ve got enough rarities to re-do our wall records 3 or 4 times over. Plus there’s another 1,000 albums going into new arrivals every day this week! Be sure to check our Facebook or Instagram for our daily drops…

See you soon!