Michelle and Greg Mitchell stand amid classic music and memorabilia in their Ruby Peak Music on Wednesday, March 2, 2022.

ENTERPRISE — Who doesn’t enjoy that warm, fuzzy feeling of a vinyl LP on a turntable? Yeah, CDs or live streaming may produce higher-definition sound, but they skip the memories the LPs evoke.

That’s what Greg and Michelle Mitchell are offering at Ruby Peak Music, a small music shop in what used to be a garage behind their home.

“It was a two-car garage and now it’s our shop,” Greg said during an interview Wednesday, March 2.

“Most of this stuff was our own and we were like, you can only have so many boxes in the house and they were stacked to the ceiling,” Michelle said. “We decided we wanted to do this place about four years ago and really started busting (the garage) out the last couple years and started cooking on it last spring. We had to get rid of the garage doors.”

They actually opened in mid-December with mostly records they’d collected on their own over the years.

Collecting

Although the Mitchells started with mostly their own collection, they did obtain some from friendly sources.

“We have this friend we met at an outdoor flea market and he was selling boxes of records and we hadn’t really bought them until then,” Michelle said.

“We were doing the CD thing at that time,” Greg added.

“We thought, ‘Oh, these are cool. Let’s check this out.’ So we bought a bunch from him for like nothing and we ended up being good friends,” Michelle said. “He would go to a storage unit and would end up with all of these records and he would call us every time he got some and so Greg, of course, was like, ‘Yeah, we want them all.’ This was becoming a once-a-week thing. It’s crazy, but it’s — with some exceptions — what we have collected.”

Greg said that friend has now passed, but they keep a picture of him there “to watch over us.”

Greg said he had to start over collecting records after his parents sold many of his originals at a yard sale.

“We didn’t know records would be coming back,” Michelle said. “It was all CDs then. Who knew?”

But the crackle — not a skip — of a vinyl record adds to its charm. Greg said they don’t sell records that skip. If a record skips, he’ll take it for a return credit and try to clean and repair it.

“That’s part of it,” Michelle said. “Obviously, you want some that don’t, but it’s like if you put on an old Mamas and Papas and there’s some crackling there, you know people have listened to it.”

“They’re so much warmer than CDs and streaming,” Greg agreed. “Streaming just sucks terribly.”

“Those crackles tell you that it’s been played and loved,” Michelle said.

The whole gamut

But they don’t limit their wares to just vinyl. They also sell CDs, cassettes and even a few eight-tracks, along with players for all and some instruments and amplifiers. They even have 45 and 78 rpm records and several genres of books.

In their shop music aficionados will find everything from classic rock such as Led Zepplin, ‘50s like Elvis Presley, pop, jazz, blues, easy listening like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, Herb Alpert, Country-Western, classical, gospel, Disco and even movie sound tracks.

The LPs aren’t all old, used and scratched. Many are new and still sealed from the manufacturer. They have sealed, unopened records such as the Beatles’ groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pink Floyd, Robert Johnson, and newer artists such as Sturgill Simpson.

“We have some more obscure things, like this is an album by the Black Angels that is one of only 500 made,” Greg said. “We have some oddities, some rarities. We want to cover the whole gamut of music, like we have done in our personal lives.”

Some of their collectibles include the Beatles Esher demos, a collection that ended up on the now-classic White Album.

“When they got together in George Harrison’s house, they taped all the songs that they were planning to put on the White Album,” Greg said. “It’s got the full White Album and two discs of them just sitting in George Harrison’s house doing the songs before they actually recorded them — demos.”

The package set goes for $95 at Ruby Peak, Greg said, adding that he believes it sells online for about $120.

Not all sealed deals are vinyl. A Pink Floyd CD box set has all kinds of extras like scarves, concerts and posters.

“All kinds of crazy things,” Greg said. “These are going for quite a bit on the internet and we have them for $100. … We try and keep our prices lower than the internet,” he said.

Keeping prices low

They have a system of colored stickers showing the cost of each record. The stickers are placed inside the album covers so as to not damage the outer cover when they’re removed. Many are less than $10.

“We know from raising two boys that we never had enough money to do anything, so we try to keep our prices reasonable,” Michelle said. “Music should be accessible to people other than just the rich.”

“We want people to be able to afford to come in here,” Greg added. “We have several customers who love just going through things.”

But like any businesspeople who hope to be successful, they’re doing their best to cater to what the customer wants.

“We’re a work in progress,” Michelle said. “We have to see what it is people want or what they’ll buy.”

Where: 501 S. River St., Enterprise

Who: Greg and Michelle Mitchell

When: Thursday and Friday, Noon to 6 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Expect to go to five days a week in spring

Phone: 775-721-7561

Email: Tuesday1111@att.net

Website: https://rubypeakmusic.com/music also Facebook