Ep. 99 Melissa Greene-Anderson (Gotham Dist., Collectables Records, Oldies.com)

2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records

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Melissa Greene-Anderson grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Since high school she was a part of her family’s music business; Gotham Distribution, Collectables Records, and the direct-to-consumer website Oldies.com. Melissa’s father started in a record store in Times Square NYC. At a very young age, Jerry Greene bought the rights to The Capri’s “There’s A Moon Out Tonight” which was released in 1959 and didn’t chart. He re-released it in 1961 and it went to #3 on the Billboard Charts.

With that money, Jerry Greene moved to Philadelphia and opened up a chain of record stores called The Record Museum. As straight as they come, he knew the business and made a killing on selling paraphernalia in the Philadelphia area, which often led to visits from Grace Slick and Jerry Garcia. After spending thousands of dollars on one visit, Jerry Garcia got busted crossing a bridge from Philadelphia to New Jersey with his haul.

Melissa was the Executive Vice President of Gotham Distribution and started selling to Tower Records. At one point, she even hired the singles buyer from the brand new Washington DC store to help run their singles business. Licensing songs from labels and making albums and eventually CDs in conjunction with Oldies radio stations helped launch the Collectables album and CD part of the business.

Eventually, Melissa got the go-ahead to rack the Tower stores with vinyl singles as cassingles and CD singles were taking over. Remember those bright gold 45 sleeves that got shipped back to send new product? Melissa worked with each store on an individual basis to make sure the program worked. She talks about a humiliating experience with a Tower Manager who refused to deal with her on their rollout.

But most of her memories are good ones. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation about music, family, Philadelphia restaurants, and Tower Records.