My sister had a good record collection by the time she entered college. When she moved out of state, she left all her vinyl LPs to her two younger brothers to split. So my middle brother and I divided the vinyl stack between us. We each ended up with an eclectic mix of music. He’s four and a half years older than I am, and at this time I was quite young – about 11 or 12, I guess. His musical tastes ran a little harder than mine. But we were both satisfied. I received some good stuff, like Frampton Comes Alive!, as well as a number of albums that kind of ended up as mine by default. The latter kind became more interesting, though.
Within a couple of years, my brother was on another of his frequent mini-obsessions. This time it was an early sign of his lifelong affinity for the simple, rustic life of the distant past. The new obsession was Southern Rock. In my stash of records from our sister, I had a few from The Marshall Tucker Band and my brother knew it. He was desperately into the genre and wanted to negotiate a bargain with me.
“Paul, you have those Marshall Tucker albums and I am dying to get my hands on them,” he said. “So I’ll trade you. If you give me your three Marshall Tucker albums, I’ll give you any three albums in my collection. Anything. Just name it.”
Now, I had never listened to those Marshall Tucker records and I didn’t even like the band all that much. Frankly, they were a little more grown-up than where my tastes were at the time. A decade later, I finally started to appreciate them. That’s kind of a pattern with certain music in my life, particularly stuff that was classic before I was ready for it. However, for the first time in my life, I had bargaining power over my middle brother and I wasn’t going to waste it.
“I want your Richard Pryor albums.”
I have never seen such a look of dismay on another person’s face to this day. Immediately, the negotiating began. “Come on,” he said, “anything but those. Pick anything else. You don’t even like Marshall Tucker!”
But he wouldn’t budge and so I wouldn’t, either. I never got Richard Pryor from him and he never got Marshall Tucker from me. A short time later – weeks? months? – his fervor for Southern Rock had cooled drastically, which was not unexpected, and not only did he stop pleading for my records, but also he started to move on to other, newer fascinations. I was stuck with records I didn’t care about, but at least I didn’t give in. And I was pretty pleased about that.
