00:00Hey gang, I'm guilty of being Jackie Bam Bam from 93.3 WMMR and we've been
00:05rocking, we've been rolling, coming up on 54 years and you want to know about a
00:10guy that powers my show. His name is Val Shively. He's a Philadelphia treasurer.
00:14It's R&B Records, Garrett Road in Upper Darby. I started going to Val Shively
00:19with my dad, Papa Bam Bam, when I was a little, little, little boy. I'm gonna put
00:24one of these records on Pierre Robert's turntable right now because this is how
00:28we do it. My name is Val Shively and I guess
00:33I'm the owner of this place. This is a warehouse. If you know what you want, we
00:41can do business. This is the deal. This is what I'm about, okay? Val Shively used to
00:49collect coins and stamps when he was a kid, but it wasn't until vinyl records that
00:54his real passion emerged. In 1956 I heard Don't Be Cruel by Elvis Presley. Went nuts.
01:04Oh my God, this is like, oh my God, where'd this record come from? I didn't know who he
01:07was. I never heard of him. And I got that record, right? And I had it and I used to
01:11play it, play it, play it, play it and never stopped playing it. That was the
01:14beginning of me into music. As a teen, acquiring more records became somewhat of an
01:20obsession. I was always working since I can remember. Anything, everything to make
01:25money and especially to buy records. And I bought records like there was no tomorrow.
01:37I meet this guy who says, hey, I hear you talking about music. I said, I love music.
01:41He goes, you ever hear Blavitt? I said, Blavitt, what's that? And so he tells me about
01:45Jerry Blavitt, which is in Camden, New Jersey on WCAM. After listening to Jerry Blavitt,
01:51Val was inspired to collect records from doo-wop and male vocal harmony groups of the 50s and
01:5760s. Things like Desiree by the charts and Please Say You Want Me to School Boys and Zoom,
02:03Zoom, Zoom by the Collegians. I had to want this wherever I went. I knew this is what I was
02:09looking for. After years of collecting hit records, Val's passion turned into a successful
02:15business with the help of his loyal sidekick, Chuck. Chuck came in here when he was 14,
02:2115 years old. He's been here for 45 years. What is your role here? It could be clerk as long
02:29as the check clears the end of the week. Well, I think the cats first, go through eBay, see
02:33if we sold anything, check the emails if anybody asked for anything and so forth. I got a guy
02:38that's been with me forever. You know what? I treat him like gold because without him,
02:41I don't exist. In the beginning, I only sold what I liked. All that stuff that I heard from
02:52Blavitt, I'm doing mail order and I'm doing business all over the country and I'm doing
02:56good. Records from jukeboxes were always a good get. I ended up buying a big load from
03:02New Orleans, a million records from a place called TAC, slang term for nickel, you know,
03:08for jukeboxes. Two 48-foot tractor trailers filled with records. That's exciting. Not
03:13knowing what was in there. I sell hits. You can say anything you want. I got it. I'm really
03:21known for having something nobody has. That's where I come to life. I don't sell a lot of
03:27anything. I sell a little bit of a lot. Everything has a shot because there's somebody out there
03:31just looking for it. I don't want to tell you what I got because I don't have time. You
03:35tell me what you want and watch me because I got it. I'm one of the people that if you
03:45could do anything in the world, I would do this. You know, this is a dream. If we don't
03:53have it, you don't need it. We have to go, everybody. Thanks for coming
04:01to R&B Records with Val Shively and Upper Darby. That's a rock and roll party. I'm Jackie
04:07Bambam from 93.3 WMMR, and you ought to know where to go to find some vinyl. Goodbye, everybody.
Comments