Sometimes I think I like record STORES more than the records themselves. The characters that run them are favorites of mine.
This photo courtesy of PROFESSOR BATTY and the Flippism Is The Key blog:
I took these photos during one of the last years the store was in business. Richard Wozniak opened up his record store in 1956, it was THE record store in Duluth until Musicland moved in sometime in the 1970s. The first time I made it up to YaH was in 1981 on the way to a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters. Mr. Wozniak was then in his early 60s. I bought a copy of Desmond Dekker’s “The Israelites” on 45 there. When I made it up there as a sales rep for ADA in 1996, he was in his late 70s. I had to wake Richard up- he was slouched over the counter snoring- just to buy some records from him. The store was very pink, and there were cut-out hearts taped all over the boxes of records. My friend Ryan had a look at the inventory that was “upstairs” & “behind the curtain”- off-limits for normal customers- he said there were bars of soap wrapped up in among the records everywhere. So here was a record store that was pink & smelled nice- atypical, huh? Many of the fixtures in the store were set up for display at The Minnesota History Center about ten years ago. The guys at The Vinyl Cave in Superior Wisconsin eventually bought all of the inventory when Richard retired, it is now for sale in the other Port City across the bridge, right downtown Superior (I drove by last weekend, looks nice, but it wasn’t open). By the way, if you’re in Superior, try Julie’s Reasaurant for breakfast down the road, you won’t be disappointed!
Thanx, DAVE AHL
gojohnnygo dot com 
Thanks for posting the photos! Lots of memories here and sad to see the great store goen forever. I just walked by the old location this weekend and also hit up the Vinyl Cave (across the way). It’s just not the same…
Those photos are amazing, they totally capture the atmosphere of what it was like to be in Young At Heart. Usually you think of places like that and there exists absolutely no visual documentation to help your memory along, so thank you for having the foresight to take some pictures! Yeah, I never really found much in there either, but it was just great that it existed.
Do you or does ANYBODY remember a record store in Waterloo, Iowa in the late 70s called Signal To Noise? I wish I had some photos of THAT one. It was in a corner of an open ground floor space of an office/warehouse building just off the edge of downtown, it was about the size of a small bedroom, and all of the records (except for a handful of LPs on the wall) were filed in file cabinets! All punk rock stuff, you just had to ask the owner, a guy named Tom Ducharme, if he had what you wanted. I bought Yes L.A. and “TAQN” by the Eyes there, don’t think it lasted for more than a year if that…
I know the reigning king of record collectors in Waterloo, and I’m about due to rustle him up again, this will give me a good reason. I will let you know what he says, Sally, but he may have been setting up new Tower store locations in California during that time. But if anyone knows about Signal to Noise, he will.
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