Rockaway Records facts for kids
Rockaway Records is a famous music and memorabilia store in Los Angeles, California. It's located in the Silver Lake neighborhood. This store is known for its rare vinyl records, signed items, posters, and other cool music collectibles. Two brothers, Gary and Wayne Johnson, started Rockaway Records in Los Angeles in 1979.
How Rockaway Records Started
In 1979, brothers Gary and Wayne Johnson loved music and records. They went to a record swap meet in Hollywood. A swap meet is like a big market where people buy, sell, and trade things. After this, they started buying and selling old vinyl albums themselves.
They looked for old records at yard sales and other swap meets. Soon, they were selling records at the Hollywood swap meet too. What began as a fun hobby quickly grew into a business. They ran a mail-order business from their home in Brea, California. They chose the name "Rockaway" to honor a song by the band Ramones called "Rockaway Beach."
Growing the Business
After a couple of years, the brothers stopped their other jobs. They focused completely on Rockaway's mail-order business. In 1982, the Johnsons bought a small record store called Rainbow Records. This store was on Glendale Boulevard in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.
The Rockaway Records store moved twice along the same street. In 1992, it moved to its current spot. This new building was very large, about 9,000 square feet. This made Rockaway the biggest record store in Los Angeles.
Another brother, Alan Johnson, opened a second Rockaway Records store in Mesa, Arizona. This store closed in 2007. In 1992, a related store also opened in Brisbane, Australia. Some famous musicians, like Lucinda Williams and Tommy Dunbar, even worked at Rockaway Records when they were younger.
Amazing Sales and Collections
Rockaway Records is known for buying and selling very large collections of music items. They also sell unique and newsworthy pieces.
- In 1991, the store made news for selling a very rare CD. It was a copy of Prince's album Black Album, which was never officially released in 1987. They sold it for $13,500.
- In 2009, Rockaway bought the world's largest collection of Led Zeppelin vinyl records.
- In 2014, the store bought and sold a collection of items from The Beatles. This collection was worth more than half a million dollars.
- In 2015, Rockaway sold an original drawing made by John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1967. This drawing was also shown in the program for the Monterey International Pop Music Festival. It sold for $175,000.
