Does your local Goodwill have a vinyl section? If you’re unsure, you might be missing out on some of the most entertaining record shopping you’ll do this year.
Seriously, shopping for vinyl at Goodwill is good for the soul. That’s only if your soul can be satisfied by a meal of odd discarded records.
I recently spent a Saturday morning in the record bin at the Goodwill in Normal, Illinois. This was my first dive into Goodwill vinyl shopping.
It did not disappoint.
Our journey begins with this exercise album from actress (Peter Pan) and gymnast Cathy Rigby. You’ll be working up a sweat while trying not to bump into your turntable during this routine.
Cathy’s album, “Stay Slim,” is available for purchase at Goodwill. Of course you may have snagged it for free back in 1982 compliments of Stayfree.
While we’re on the subject of pricing, I should mention that Goodwill vinyl shoppers need to be savvy when checking the price tag. For instance, a copy of Jack Jones’s “Dear Heart” was in fact not part of a two for a $1 “final closeout” sale as the sticker suggests.
Inflation has hit Jack Jones like everything else since this album was released in 1965.
While not all of the vinyl at Goodwill is in the best shape, you can still score some pretty cool album covers to decorate your listening space at home.
I mean how flippin’ cool does Henry Mancini look on the cover of 1977’s “Mancini’s Angels?”
And for every sweet cover with Henry Mancini talking on the phone that isn’t all the way up to his ear, there’s always some really weird album art that you’ll want to add to your collection just to say “look what I bought. I don’t even know what’s happening in this cover photo, but I had to have it.”
Maybe it will be something like this cover.
As the album title suggests, the greatest gift really is love. The second greatest gift might be pants.
Hopefully someone gifts a pair to this lady once Christmas rolls around this year.
Yeah No Great 