For twenty years, Smith ran a mail-order record business called Recordsmith but desired a more personal interaction with buyers. Before that, he worked as a salesman, going door to door literally selling doors. "I learned if I made someone my friend, they'd buy from me," says Smith. "I try to be nice to people and turn them into my friends first." Smith has an encyclopedic knowledge of nearly every record in Reunion Revolution, and selling things is very much a secondary concern to telling people about them.
"Like the majority of record hoarders from his generation, Smith got into music because of the Beatles. He has every single Beatles release as well as every solo effort or collaboration all four of the band's members ever recorded. A few weeks ago, Smith got a record he'd been waiting on — an echt Yesterday and Today with the original butcher cover. The controversial photo of the Fab Four smiling amid slaughtered baby-doll parts, designed as a 'comment on Vietnam,' led Capitol to recall the album in 1966 so a more innocuous image could go in its place. Smith gave his new prize an $800 price tag, and it comes with a display plaque as well as a letter of authenticity.
Smith's enviable Beatles collection goes beyond records. He owns a suit jacket made by the band's Savile Row tailor — he bought it from a roadie at a Beatles show some 40 years ago. But it was another clothing item that fomented Smith's enthusiasm for collecting, one that comes from a world entirely separate from pop music: European militaria."
Smith's enviable Beatles collection goes beyond records. He owns a suit jacket made by the band's Savile Row tailor — he bought it from a roadie at a Beatles show some 40 years ago. But it was another clothing item that fomented Smith's enthusiasm for collecting, one that comes from a world entirely separate from pop music: European militaria."
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