This shop is still spinning.
Rock and Soul, the Midtown-based record store credited with nurturing the early careers of Mark Ronson, Wu Tang Clan and Grandmaster Flash, is celebrating its 50th anniversary on Record Store Day on Saturday – and attributes its survival to being able to “evolve” over the years.
The Manhattan store was first a humble electronics shop on Seventh Avenue before turning into a vinyl paradise in the early 1980s and, later, a gear haven for Big Apple DJs – and its transformation act may not be over yet.
“The most important thing is you have to not be afraid to evolve – we keep changing,” said CEO Sharone Bechor, whose parents Joseph and Shirley opened the business in 1975 after emigrating from Israel.
The shop, which moved to West 37th Street in 2023 due to a rent increase, currently stays afloat by supplementing vinyl record sales with DJ equipment and lessons, Bechor told The Post – but what keeps its core regulars coming back is the community it has fostered over the decades.
“Every hip hop artist got their start here,” Bechor said, listing off names from MC Hammer to Biggie Smalls. “Mark Ronson still comes in and he’ll find inspiration from other music, other people. You never know who you’re going to meet in here.”
Other celeb clientele over the years have included Lindsay Lohan, Spike Lee, Run DMC, Pauly D and even Harrison Ford “because his son wanted to be a DJ,” Bechor said.
The shop first gained notoriety in the 1980s for its vast record selection as other stores swapped vinyl for CDs – and DJs quickly flocked to Rock and Soul for new releases to include in their mixes.
“Everything in the store was word of mouth and listening to what people wanted,” Bechor said. “We never paid for any advertising. All [my parents] did was listen and find out what people wanted – and when more than one person asked for it, they would order it.”
The business model was a resounding success through the 1980s and 90s, Bechor recalled, with Shirley becoming a local celebrity “Music Mom” – and is still remembered by budding DJs as the shop keeper who yelled at them for opening merchandise.
“These really famous guys would get kicked out of the store – like [Hot 97’s] Funkmaster Flex wasn’t allowed to return for so long, he was sending his minions to try to buy records for him,” Bechor laughed.
But as times changed, so did Rock and Soul, Bechor said – and as the music world pivoted online, the shop switched to selling DJ equipment to make ends meet by the 90s.
“People who are looking for vinyl records will come more often, but we’re able to be held afloat by both [vinyl and] by the DJ equipment side,” Bechor said, adding that, while the new generation’s interest in vinyl is certainly welcome, it isn’t enough to pay the bills in full.
“It’s hard to make money on records because you have to have a really good selection – some years we just broke even, because we have a huge selection and maybe we’ll only sell 30% of it,” Bechor added.
Elsewhere in the Big Apple, other record store owners lamented about the industry’s hardships as they geared up for Record Store Day, a nationwide celebration of independent record shops.
“If you’re trying to get rich out of this, it’s not gonna happen,” Village Revival Records owner Jamal Alnasr told The Post. “It’s not the 90s where you sell a lot of physicals, CDs – we are in the digital era… you do it because you love it.
“And if you don’t love it, I don’t think you can stay in this kind of business,” he said.
Alnasr noted most of his 30-year-old business is sustained by “oldies,” from records sales spanning Elvis to Miles Davis to Tina Turner.
But uncertainty still lingers for Alnasr, 52, who told The Post he is “very worried” about the prospect of tariffs on foreign imports hitting the record industry, given that most vinyl is pressed outside of the United States.
“I bought something from Europe and … the merchandise [alone] cost me about $2,800,” he said. “I think I paid tariffs and shipment like $1,000, maybe more.”
“[Tariffs] would affect maybe more of the everyday artists who are going to try to get their records pressed up,” said Gustavo Guerra, a.k.a. Producer Plug, a DJ, producer and Chinatown record store owner. “For us, being that we do OGs, we just take it day by day. I don’t think much is going to change in that aspect.
“People will always love digging for records,” he added.
“Sadly, every [gear] company wrote us an email with new pricing, so pricing will go up everywhere with all items we carry,” Bechor told The Post of her store’s own tariff woes.
And “when oil prices go up, so does vinyl,” she said.
Bechor notes that equipment rentals have helped the store stay out of the red as of late by lending DJ equipment to the likes of Chelsea Piers, Terminal 5, the Whitney Museum and even Times Square New Year’s Eve crews – but at the end of the day, it’s the decades-old core customers that keep Rock and Soul’s spirit alive in Manhattan.
“We have a loyal customer base – tourists definitely will come in,” she said, “but our real base is local people who have been coming here a long time, and just love music.”
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