Aaron and Merrill Rosenbloom, the brothers who founded Chicago`s Rose Records in 1931-exactly 60 years ago if you`re counting-are posing for a Tribune photographer with their sons, James and Jack, who have continued and expanded the business.
The photo session is being held at the family`s flagship store in the Loop at 214 S. Wabash Ave.
The four Rosenblooms are standing in an aisle between alphabetized bins of compact discs on the second floor, which is devoted to classical music. On the right are works by Debussy, Delius, Dohnanyi, Dowland, Dufay, Dupre and Dvorak. On the left, Schubert, Schumann, Schutz, Scriabin and Sessions.
Merrill Rosenbloom is telling a story. Merrill`s always telling stories. At age 83, he`s the gregarious, wise-cracking younger brother. Aaron, 87, is quieter and more reserved, his humor ironic.
”A couple of years ago,” Merrill says, ”my wife and I are coming out of Orchestra Hall. We`ve just heard Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman, and this lady we know comes up and says to me, `Wasn`t that wonderful? Aren`t you sorry your parents didn`t make you play the violin when you were a boy?`
”I said, `I`ve done all right playing the phonograph.` ”
Indeed, the phonograph, in a manner of speaking, has been good to all the Rosenblooms.
Aaron and Merrill began in the `20s, selling radio parts from a storefront in the Loop. In those days, some people built their own sets and handled their own repairs, and the Rosenblooms provided the tubes and transformers.
The sign said ”Radio Doctors.” The city eventually told them to change the name because it encroached upon the dignity of the medical profession.
The brothers said OK, no problem. Besides, the business was changing. Radio was booming as more and more stations came on the air, and the Rosenblooms grew along with the industry.
In `31, they became Rose Radio, retailing the smaller Zenith, Emerson and Detrola models, adding phonographs, then records, and somehow surviving the Depression and competition from the big department stores.
Today the family enterprise, run by the second generation, includes a thriving wholesale subsidiary, a mail-order line and a chain of more than 30 Rose Records outlets.
Jack, 50, is Merrill`s son and a mirror of his old man-outgoing, informal, flamboyant. He`s dressed in a Rose Records sweatshirt and a company cap. ”The good thing about this business,” Jack says, ”is you don`t have to grow up.”
James, 49, is also much like his father, Aaron-reticent, wry, conservative. Jack partied and studied business at Bradley University. James went to the University of Chicago and studied toward a doctorate in history at the University of California at Berkeley, before forsaking academe for the school of hard knocks and pleasing sounds.
100,000 titles
If the phonograph has been good for the Rosenblooms, they have, in turn, been good for the phonograph.
Nowhere is this more evident than at the Wabash store, the pride and colossus of the Rosenbloom realm.
The inventory of the typical record store is perhaps 25,000 titles. Rose Records on Wabash has more than 100,000 titles in cassettes, CDs and LPs displayed over three floors, making it among the world`s largest.
In the Chicago area, it`s unsurpassed not only in the sheer number of selections but also in their staggering range.
If you have an appetite for recorded music, this store is a feast, a smorgasbord of styles and performers, mainstream and obscure, from all over the globe.
You could make the case that Rose Records on Wabash deserves a place among the city`s most important cultural institutions, certainly among the most treasured.
To get a feel for the cosmopolitan nature of the wares, note only a few of the categories of classical recordings: Renaissance, Medieval, Gregorian Chants, Canadian Brass, Tchaikovsky Ballets, Mozart Symphonies, Verdi Operas, Cello, Bassoon, Clarinet, Oboe.
Nor do many such establishments display posters of Georg Solti, Vladimir Horowitz, Claudio Abbado, Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma, Herbert von Karagan and Daniel Barenboim in addition to the Pet Shop Boys, Teddy Pendergrass and Madonna.
Java`s top hits
Now take the escalator to the International section on the third floor and browse through the groupings of countries and continents, where you`re likely to discover names you never knew.
In the bountiful Africa bin, for example, there are, among others, Ali Farka Toure, Youssou N`Dour and Aster Aweke.
You`ll find recordings by Gal Costa and a dozen other singers and musicians from Brazil; CDs from Armenia, Bali and Bulgaria; hits from Portugal, Pakistan, Java, Poland.
The third floor also features Gospel, Blues, Folk, Soundtracks (from movies), Original Cast (from Broadway shows), Nostalgia and Comedy.
In Comedy, you can choose from more than Bill Cosby, Jay Leno and other household names. The inimitable but widely unknown Jackie ”The Joke Man”
Martling has a cassette.
While there`s no shortage of the rarefied and the unusual, Rose Records also accommodates copious quantities of fashionably current and utterly American music.
The first floor is loaded with pop, rock, rap, jazz, country and soul, an array of permutations and approaches from the extreme to the conventional as recorded by everyone from Abba to ZZ Top.
”Our strength is the range and timeliness of what we have,” James says. ”We owe this to our buyers. Frank Lord, who`s been with us for 25 years, is an expert on folk, country, blues and international music. Mark Jenkins is brilliant with classical. Bob Vuchetich and Tom Jacobson know the pop field better than anyone.”
The Rosenblooms` preferences are varied and eclectic. The cassettes and artists now in their cars` tape players: Merrill-”Sinatra Gold.” Jack-Bob Seger`s ”Nine Tonight.” James-Tenor Jussi Bjoerling. Aaron-Willie Nelson.
Static from radio
The day before, the scene was a wood-paneled conference room in the 100,000-square-foot warehouse on the South Side that`s headquarters for the wholesale operation, which Jack oversees.
An attempt to trace the early years of the brothers` partnership is finally futile, as Merrill and Aaron zig and zag through time, leaping from the `20s to the `40s, back to the `30s, ahead to the `70s, then to the `50s, disagreeing on dates, throwing out a welter of names, disappearing into tangles of tangents.
Some details, milestones and insights emerge intact.
– A key to success. ”Aaron and Merrill had a beautiful sister who married a very wealthy man,” James explains. ”He put up the money for the business. That`s why we`re all here today.”
– Brotherhood. Merrill and Aaron never quarreled. ”The secret is we didn`t talk to each other,” Merrill says. ”We had different
responsibilities,” Aaron says.
– You have to adapt. ”The technology is constantly changing,” Jack says.
After World War II, records were produced through a process called high fidelity or hi-fi, which in the `60s was superseded by stereophonic or stereo recordings. The 33 1/3-r.p.m. long-playing record (LP) appeared in 1948, 45-r.p.m. records a year later. Eight-track tapes came along in the `70s, then became extinct because of cassette tapes. In the `80s, compact discs overwhelmed the market.
– Uncertainty is the rule. ”The business goes up and down,” Merrill says. ”Radio almost killed the record business in the `30s and `40s because it was nothing but comedy shows.” ”Now radio is a selling tool,” Jack says. TV was almost lethal in the `50s, but then came the incredible `60s, when sales graphs resembled rocket launches. ”Music became part of the lives of young people in a way it never was before,” Jack says.
– Family moves. Merrill and Aaron started the wholesale business in the
`60s but stood pat with two retail stores. In the `70s, Jack, James and four partners went out on their own, hatching a chain of Sounds Good stores. With permission from Aaron and Merrill, in the early `80s they decided the new Downers Grove store would be called Rose Records. Business was spectacularly better. ”We saw how much the name meant,” Jack says. In `89, Jack and James bought out their partners and began expanding.
– Sixty thou for 60 years. ”In appreciation for the success we`ve had here for 60 years,” James says, ”we`re making $20,000 gifts to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Crusade of Mercy and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.” A Boss turnout
– Random notes. The Wabash store receives an occasional request for its stock of bowed piano recordings, in which a bow is used on piano strings. James` vote for unexpected sensation goes to Vaughn Meader`s comedy LP of the `60s, ”The First Family.” (Meader sounded like President Kennedy.) The release of a Bruce Springsteen collection on CDs prompted the kind of lines the Beatles routinely inspired when they were together. Today`s long-hair hit is ”Three Tenors,” by Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. – Exotic delights. ”An entire genre of world music has evolved,” James says. ”Billboard (magazine) now has a world music chart that`s dominated by African, reggae and Caribbean groups. There`s an increasingly big demand for this music.” As for Eastern European music, James says most immigrants, at first anyway, patronize ethnic record shops. ”The same, I think, is true for Greeks and Mexicans. We have substantial sales in this area, but the big demand is met in ethnic neighborhoods.”
– Of performers who appeared at the Wabash store, Pavarotti and Julio Iglesias were the biggest draws. The latter, however, caused hearts to throb harder. ”We had to being Julio in the back door,” James says. ”He was surrounded by security people, and I still thought he might be trampled.”
– Queues have also spilled onto Wabash for Tony Bennett and Walter Cronkite, the anchorman promoting a record he narrated about the `60s.
– Problems remain. ”I go to the office every day,” Merrill says, ”but I haven`t got anything to do. So how do I know when I`m finished? I`m telling you, I got to make decisions like this every day.”
