Ep. 40 Ray Edwards (National Classical Merchandise Manager)
2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records
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Ray Edwards Classical music journey started in the 3rd grade through a friend’s mother who was a Classical violinist. Ray enjoyed the music education he received in school and went to college interested in Music Education, but suddenly stopped that program and took a job at Penn Records at 18th & Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Ray would later work at H. Royer Smith Records, the oldest record store in Philadelphia (opened in 1908). In the early 1970’s when a friend headed west to San Francisco, word came back that Ray had to move out there and check out a record store called Tower Records.
In San Francisco Ray was hired and eventually worked with Stan Goman who came in to clean up the store. For a while Ray was Stan’s Assistant Manager until…he wasn’t. In order to avoid a pay cut, Stan and John Schaier, the General Manager of Tower’s Record Division, made the position of company wide Classical Music Manager. Writing all of the radio scripts for Classical radio station ads and buying Classical cut outs for the stores were a part of his new responsibilities.
Ray would regularly visit stores throughout the chain and make sure buying and merchandising was up to Tower standards. Prior to the opening of the 4th & Broadway store, Tower’s first in NYC, Ray moved from San Francisco to New York City. From 1983 on, Ray was writing opening Classical orders and doing the rack layout for new stores. Ray also joined almost all of the A Teams to help open the Classical Departments throughout the country and the world.
On today’s episode, Ray recounts many of these openings and the hijinks surrounding some of the better known stores.
As Tower wound down, Ray knew that his days and his position were numbered. It still didn’t make it easy when he was summoned to the Regional Manager’s office to take a phone call letting him know his position had been eliminated.
Join us for an enlightening conversation about the all important, but little known Classical music departments that helped to make Tower Records the best record store chain in the world.