The Resurgence of Vinyl Records
By Drew Daws
In the early 1980s, vinyl record sales began to decline with the introduction of CDs. In recent years though, vinyls are back, and the industry is growing by the day.
Lafayette Haynes has been in the vinyl business for more than 50 years since he opened his first record shop on Cotton Avenue in downtown Macon.
“The first week of April 1967, I opened Lafayette Records. I’ve been in business ever since. I love music. It’s a great thing,” he said.
In 2009, he moved to Second Street and changed the name to Old School Records.
“When cassettes and CDs came out, the sale of vinyls and 45 records went down,” he said. “I never stopped selling vinyl, but like I said, 2014: Boom! Albums and 45s are back.”
The resurgence of vinyl in the music industry has inspired other community members to open their own vinyl shops. There are now three locally owned record stores in downtown Macon.
Willie Dantzler opened Fresh Produce Records on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in 2013. Tony Doolin, owner of Falling Star Records, opened his shop on Second Street in November.
“When I was trying to figure out something to do as my career, I saw an opportunity to open a retail shop, and I thought I’d start with records,” Dantzler said.
More than 40 million vinyl records are expected to be sold in 2017 alone, the highest number of sales since 1991, according to an article from Forbes.
“I think people grew to appreciate what was going away,” Dantzler said. “There’s going to be a balance, but there’s a big difference between a record collection and a MP3 collection.”
Doolin also thinks there is something special about vinyls that you cannot get with other forms of media.
“A download of the song is not the actual recorded version of that song,” he said. “When a needle rests in the groove of a vinyl record, it is playing back true recorded sound.”
During his career, Haynes has met artists like Otis Redding, Little Richard and James Brown. As Macon’s music scene grows, he has seen a notable shift back toward vinyl records.
“Now that the old music is back, everyone is looking for the vinyls that they threw away. (Business) is rolling,” he said.
Dantzler has also seen growing interest from people of all ages.
“There are a lot of people that may have been into (vinyls) before and are getting back into it,” he said. “There are also some younger kids trying to figure it out, so we try to provide a little bit for everybody.”
The more people buy vinyl records, the faster the market grows within the music industry, Doolin said.
“Vinyl is the only growing form of physical media in the last decade,” he said. “Sales of CDs have declined, but vinyl has consistently grown.”
Contemporary artists, like Adele, have even begun producing their own vinyl records as the industry takes off.
“They say vinyls sound the best,” Haynes said. “I think so too.”
