Out of the Past Records, a Vinyl Paradise on Madison Street

If you’re one of those people, like me, who still enjoys listening to vinyl, you gotta stop by Out of The Past Records at 4407 W. Madison St. in Austin. Just know this before you get there, Out of the Past is not your regular record store; it’s more like the Walmart or Sam’s Club of record stores.  Also, make sure you plan ahead and have plenty of free time on your hands, because you could easily be there for a while. 

In 1963, the late Charlie Henderson and his wife Marie opened a photography studio at 8 S. Pulaski in West Garfield Park. He was a big music fan, so they decided to put a record shop inside the photography studio and began selling records. The couple eventually opened and operated 10 record stores across the city. 

“Back in those years on Fridays and Saturdays when people got paid, they would always buy records, because that was the thing back then,” Mary says.

After Charlie passed, the stores were consolidated into two locations before eventually merging into the current location at 4407 W. Madison St. 

The store provides a family atmosphere and covers many genres of music, including soul, jazz, blues, house and stepping music. The place is a paradise for people who like to dig around and find those treasured classics. By design, the store is not set up to display all the merchandise. One side is organized, and you can flip through the records listed by artists in alphabetical order. Another side, the fun side, is just rows and rows, and stacks and stacks of vinyl records separated by genres, so you must do your own digging around. 

Mass appeal 

The store also has back rooms full of vinyl records that haven’t even reached the shelves yet. With so much merchandise, Out of The Past has attracted record-buyers from around the world. 

“Before the pandemic I had a lot of buyers from overseas,” Mary says. “They would actually come in from Germany, England, France, Australia, Korea. We had a lot of buyers coming in. We just have an influx of good people that like their music. I’m kind of glad that they’re showing people LP’s again, because we’re getting a lot of young folks in and you’d be surprised at the amount of young people buying LP’s and 45’s.” 

In addition to all the vinyl, Out of The Past also carries CD’s, cassette tapes and, believe it or not, eight-track tapes. Yes, they go back that far. As an additional service, you can also have your hard drive loaded with your favorite style of music. 

They also have a turntable available, so you can listen to anything before you purchase it. This is the place where you can accidentally come across some of your favorite old school music. I found a couple classics laying around near the turntables.   

Deep in the music

Anissa Gooden, Marie’s granddaughter, has been around the store since she was a a baby. She now helps manage the store. She said sampling drew her deeper into music. 

“What got me started is, I would hear a song from someone like Mary J Blige and the songs that they would sample from older artists,” Anissa says. “So, I would hear the original artists and think it was somebody else and that’s when my grandma would tell me, ‘No, that’s the original person.’” 

Anissa says she sees people from all walks of life in the store and she knows most customers by name.

The first thing you see as you enter the store is a photo gallery put together by one of their customers, a retired photographer. He takes pictures of other customers and people from the community. They call it their ‘Wall of Fame.’ 

“They don’t play about that wall,” Anissa says. “They want to see their picture up. Most of the wall is filled with people from our community and now their kids and grandkids come in and shop with us, so it’s like a generational thing here.”