Vinyl Comes Alive Saturday At Beverly Records For Record Store Day

CHICAGO — Crate diggers of all musical tastes and genres are invited to take part in Record Store Day Saturday, April 20, a global event that celebrates the vanishing indie record shops that once flourished on street corners and downtown shopping districts during the pre-digital and streaming age.

One of the most renowned and venerable indie record shops in the United States, Beverly Records, 11612 South Western Ave., Chicago, will be throwing its doors open at 8 a.m. Saturday, to collectors lining the block anxious to buy some of the vinyl exclusives being released only to independently owned record shops, along with RSD firsts and small run/regional releases. Most of Beverly Records' inventory of gently used records will be 20 percent off all day.

Later at 2 p.m., Beverly Records will host a party in the adjacent parking lot featuring The Secret 4, an all instrumental band out of Chicago, with deep roots in the Chicago Blues; Chicago Blues artist Willie Buck, an elder Blues statesman and one-time bandmate of Muddy Waters; and the Bourbon Belts, an independent acoustic country-folk duo from Chicago. The party is weather permitting, but so far the forecast calls for sunny weather in the 50s.

Longtime and beginning musicphiles can also comb through the bins of Beverly Records’ hundred of thousands of albums lining the walls, center aisle and crannies from the front door to the alley.

Filmmaker Jim McCool, who is currently producing a documentary about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, Dion and the Belmonts, Frankie Sardo, Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup and Carl Bunch and the doomed Winter Dance Party tour of 1959, will also be appearing at Beverly Records. Fed up with riding on drafty, broken down buses, Holly, 22 chartered a small private plane where he, Valens, 17 and The Big Bopper, 28, took off in the wee hours of Feb. 3, 1959, having earlier played an electrifying show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, only to crash in a cornfield.

McCool and his partner, Sevan Garabedian, have interviewed dozens of survivors, including musicians and fans, who attended the shows from the barnstorming tour from during a deadly Midwestern winter. To show the filmmakers’ high regard for Beverly Records, the South Side record store is the only venue outside the Surf Ballroom Museum to display the last photos taken by a Minnesota teen of Holly and Ritchie on stage just a few hours before their deaths.

Owner Jack Dreznes has ordered RSD releases based on “what people ask for,” including rare recordings of Nat King Cole performing live at the Chicago Blue Note, Linda Ronstadt’s Asylum Albums, Grateful Dead, The Beatles and the indie California- based rock band the Cold War Kids, and whatever else comes in. A hot item this year is a special edition RSD turntable designed to play 3-inch vinyl discs that are included with some box sets, including the Beatles’ Ed Sullivan performances.

Beverly Records is the only venue outside of the Surf Ballroom Museum in Clear Lake, IA, allowed to display the last photos of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper's final concert on Feb. 2, 1959 hours before their deaths.

Beverly Records originally started out as a record and stationery shop, a few doors down from where the current store is today, that sold Top 40 singles, greeting cards and airplane models. You could also pay your utility bills there, and buy stamps. Dreznes' parents —John and Christine — purchased the business in 1967, which today is run by their sons, Jack Dreznes and Randy Dreznes.

Christine began to notice the frequency of customers coming into the variety store and asking for certain records. Always wanting to help, Christine would order the titles they requested. Eventually, the stationery and airplane model side of the business was phased out.

“Someone would come in and ask for a record like the Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody,’” Dreznes recalled in past Patch interview. “She had sources where she could bring in the records they wanted. It was a way to help people out. To this day, we do the same thing.”

John and Christine began buying other floundering record shops on the South Side. Before his parents knew it, they had built up a sizable vinyl inventory. Soon, Beverly Records grew out of its 1,000-square-foot store. When the storefront at 11612 became available for rent in September 1971, the Dreznes family filled it with records.

Christine Dreznes also dabbled in costume rentals for a time after a frustrated mother came to her looking for a Halloween costume that would fit her “husky” son, that evolved into Beverly Costumes that operated successfully for 40 years a few doors down from the record store at 11628 S. Western Ave.

The store will start selling select RSD titles from the hundreds of exclusive RSD releases available in 2024, representing an eclectic mix of genres, from heavy metal and rock to jazz and opera. Beverly Records has also signed the Record Store Day pledge: to sell the commercial Record Store Day releases to their physical customers on Record Store Day, not to price gouge them, or hold product back to sell online. Beverly Records has also enacted its own strict one-of-each, first-come-first-serve, no-hoarding policy, in the spirit of the day.

Longtime and beginning musicphiles can also comb through the bins of Beverly Records’ hundred of thousands of albums lining the walls, center aisle and crannies from the front door to the alley, where they may also find a few bunny heads left over from the store’s early days as a costume rental shop.

“Beverly Records is known worldwide,” said Dreznes. “If we don’t have it, we’ll find it and order it.”