Featured Essay: My Life in Vinyl

by  Sharon Riddick Hoggard

My husband has been saying vinyl records are going to make a comeback. “You wait and see. We’re not getting rid of our albums.” Yeah, I’ve been trying to get him to sell those albums on eBay for a couple of decades or to a collector. We’re both members of the Boomer generation born in the 50s. And although I’ve adapted and wholly embraced digital media including music, I was a baby rocker born and bred in the 50s, hooked on the vinyl records before my first birthday. 

Picture this: When I was still in diapers my parents bought me a record player . . . a stereophonic record player. I forget the brand name but as an only child at the time, perhaps they thought music would be good company for their baby. Little did they know that record player and those old vinyl 78 records became my best bud teaching me language, how to sing (badly), identify singers and genres of music, and provided hours of entertainment. 

One of my favorite records was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer by Gene Autry. The vinyl record itself was actually red which probably had something to do with my love of the recording. Mama would set my little stereophonic record player speaker on a kitchen shelf, and the turntable cabinet was stationed on the washing machine. 

Mama would then play the ‘Rudy’ song. And still wearing a diaper, rubber pants included, I’d dance and sing to my first vinyl red record. I’d get mama to play that record over and over again regardless of the season and she always obliged. 

Now the real throw down throwback vinyl was a song by Fats Domino commonly titled Hello Josephine. This song was also associated with Jerry Lee Lewis . . . which didn’t matter to me. In my diaper with associated pink pants, I’d dance to Fats Domino’s version of Hello Josephine playing it over and over. The song made such an impression on me I still remember some of the words . . . 

Hello, Josephine. How do you do? Do you remember Mr. Stephens like I remember you. We used to laugh so hard it was a crying shame. We used to walk over yonder across the railroad track. And when you couldn’t walk, I used to tote you on my back.

That slow rhythm, simply lyrics, harmony, the beat and Fats Domino’s throaty voice set me up for my own private baby dance party! Imagine a toddler in a diaper with rubber pants dancing to Hello Josephine and swinging those diaper-padded hips to the rhythm of the beat. 

Fast forward 25 years later and my love of music on vinyl records only grew. By age 26 or 27 I was able to buy my first record component set. My college friend AV had made a set of speakers and gave them to me and then my component set was complete. Seventh heaven, pig heaven or music-lover heaven…I was in like Flynn. 

Bought my first album by a little-known funk band called Graham Central Station. Larry Graham, one of the best bass guitarist in the world, spoke to me through his hard-driven drum-like bass, poetical lyrics, quirky band members, 70s clothes, and messages of freedom and undying love. Quickly I became obsessed with the sound of Larry Graham, Sly & the Family Stone, Parliament Funkadelic, Rick James…and other artists mimicking the funk genre all on vinyl record albums.

An old family friend gave my sister and me an album by a group called Three Dog Night. As Black kids growing up in a community created for Black shipyard workers during WWII, we had never heard of Three Dog Night! But one of the cuts, One, became my favorite. Mama Told Me Not to Come and Easy to Be Hard became my theme songs before I entered college. When I was heavily using social media, some 30 years later,  I mentioned one day that I was melancholy and listening to One by Three Dog Night. Some of my followers stood me down there was no such group by that name. By the way, young whipper snappers, Three Dog Night is still on the music scene.

My first professional job was with the Black Press located in my hometown of Hampton Roads, Virginia. I loved that job – writing news stories, interviewing the famous and not-so-famous, photographing school children, church and special events, etc. I covered the Hampton Jazz Festival every year during my employment with the newspaper (1981-1987). I got the opportunity to meet some of my music heroes including Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Lou Rawls, Gil Scot Heron, Jeffrey Osborne, Patti LaBelle, and many more. The jazz festival organizers staged media briefings with the artists, and I was able to interview and photograph music icons for the newspaper. Jeffrey Osborne, a great ballad singer and former lead singer with the group LTD, loved my stories about his performances so much that for years he’d contact me when he had released new music or had a concert locally. What a gig!

After assuming additional responsibilities at the newspaper and eventually becoming managing editor, I received the greatest assignment EVER! I became the paper’s music critic. Allow me to reiterate – What a gig! National, local and small music labels sent me albums by established and new artists to listen to, review, and write up critiques for the main paper and our supplemental publication The Hampton Roads Weekender. Sometimes I was lucky enough to receive albums from emerging artists. So much music all on big 33-1/3 vinyl albums with beautiful cover art. 

It was through this experience that I got my first taste of contemporary gospel. What a difference between that decade’s gospel and the gospel music my father listened to. I gained a new appreciation of both styles of gospel but was more inspired by the contemporary gospel stylings Shirley Ceasar, Sam Cooke, CeCe Winans, Andre Crouch and others. 

We still have those albums, stored in two egg crates, nearly 40 years after leaving the newspaper. And the last time I checked they were in pretty good working order. Yeah, my hubby is probably right – vinyl is going to make a comeback. 

 Sharon Riddick Hoggard is a recently retired (2022), 42-year public relations veteran with diverse work experiences spanning more than four decades. 

Today, Riddick Hoggard is a freelance writer for a local university working on annual philanthropy reports and semi-annual alumni magazines. Still searching for opportunities, Riddick Hoggard continues to accept a variety of freelance writing assignments.