Today in Sacramento, the original home of Tower Records, the big yellow and red sign was taken down.
Russ Solomon started the Tower empire in the 1950's, selling records out of his father's pharmacy on Broadway in Sacramento. The Tower Records store at Watt and El Camino was one of his first, opened in 1960. The big yellow and red sign neon appeared a year later.
Tower expanded through the decades, with stores in major U.S. cities and eventually in Europe, Central and South America, and Asia. But all good things must come to an end, and the introduction of MP3 technology hastened the demise of the mainstay part of the business—recorded music. As the CBS TV coverage points out, Russ Solomon is still selling music, now in a newer store called R5, located at 16th and Broadway in Sacramento.
I worked for Tower from 1975 to 1977 as a Jazz LPs (that's vinyl) buyer in Campbell, California. After a brief stint at Columbia Records in San Francisco, I came home again to the Tower family, and worked as a Tower Books manager from 1978 to 1979, both in Mountain View and then later in Berkeley.
I always thought that logo needed updating, but boy, you could see those yellow and red plastic bags from a mile away.
(Thanks for the tip, Uncle Mick.)
