Heyl: Jerry's Records Owner Bidding A Fond Farewell To Store

There’s no other way to spin it. In a few weeks, things won’t be the same at Jerry’s Records.

The cavernous Squirrel Hill record emporium will still be stocked with some 500,000 LPs. Most will sell for $5 or less. The phone number will remain the same. The sign outside that for years defiantly has proclaimed “Jerry’s Ain’t Closin’’” will still be there.

But Jerry Weber won’t. After nearly four decades of peddling his beloved records at several Pittsburgh locations, Weber, 69, has sold the business to one of his employees, Chris Grauzer, and is about to retire.

“Bittersweet? Yes, it’s very bittersweet,” Weber said. “But I leave on August 1 and I’m having my knee operated on on August 3, so that’ll be a nice distraction.”

For vinylphiles both local and nationally, this is a sad occasion. Weber has been doing this since the late 1970s, when he was a co-owner of Record Graveyard in Oakland. He then opened his own place that first was named Garbage Records before being rechristened Jerry’s.

“I got tired of answering the phone, `This is Garbage,’” he explained.

Weber moved to the Squirrel Hill location in the mid-1990s and gradually garnered a national reputation for the size of his business. In 2010, Rolling Stone named Jerry’s one of the country’s top 25 record stores.

“Vinyl...really matters here,” the magazine stated. “Jerry’s enormous space (runs) the gamut of genres: jazz, R&B, psychedelic rock, as well as more recent stuff: Bonus: Jerry’s repairs record players and sells used turntables as well.”

Many people have spent countless hours browsing through the store’s seemingly endless aisles. One of Weber’s most memorable customers was former Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant, who stopped in while in town for a solo performance at the Petersen Events Center.

Plant purchased an LP by Jack Jones, a pop and jazz singer whose popularity peaked in the 1960s. When Plant brought it to the counter, Weber expressed surprise over the selection.

“He said, `Let me tell you a story, mate. Ever since I began singing professionally, every time I go and visit me mum, she asks me why I don’t sing more like Jack Jones,’” Weber said. “So whenever Plant could find a Jack Jones record, he’d buy it for his mother.”

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Weber’s retirement plans involve records.

Weber purchased an old auto dealership in Swissvale and plans to sell some of his personal collection of 20,000 out of the building a few days a week and also at occasional record fairs. He hopes to open what he calls his “flea market place” in January after fully recovering from his upcoming surgery.

His new store won’t be called Jerry’s, though. He sold the name to Grauzer.

“I have to adopt a new persona: Vinyl-Man. You know, like a superhero,” he said, chuckling. “Look, up in the sky - it’s a rocket, it’s a drone, no, it’s Vinyl-Man!”

Weber might be retiring but he’s still passionate about his profession. While we talked in the store, he took a call from a guy interested in buying a record by Mantovani, who pioneered orchestral pop in the 1950s.

“He sounded sincere. I hope he was,” Weber said after the call ended. “Any time we can sell a Mantovani record here, we shut down the store and do a dance in the street.”

No, Jerry’s ain’t closin’. But it’s a shame Jerry’s goin’.

Eric Heyl is Patch's Pittsburgh field editor. Reach him at 412-334-4033 or Eric.Heyl@Patch.com.

Photos by Eric Heyl/Patch staff.