Shop Focus: The Berkshire Record Outlet

Although it now serves somewhere in excess of 15,000 customers worldwide, the Berkshire Record Outlet remains something of a well-kept secret – for those on a budget, for those seeking rare and out-of-print CDs, there’s nothing else quite like it. It currently stocks over 20,000 different titles, mostly on CD, although DVDs, books, cassettes, LPs and even photographic prints can be found among its inventory. In addition to classi- cal music this vast catalog encompasses “opera, film scores, original cast, jazz, blues and world music.” Where else can one find pianists Marc-André Hamelin and Leif Ove Andsnes recent account of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps for two pianos on Hyperion (CDA 68189) in perfect condition, still in the original shrink-wrap for $8.99 or the long-ago deleted 11CD (+DVD) Q Disc set of conductor Eduard van Beinum’s “live” radio recordings from 1935-58. (97015), equally pristine, for $65.89? These sets are not used, nor are they usually ‘cut- outs’, disfigured by drilled-bored holes or hack-sawn jewel cases and booklets. How do they do it? Born to a family of diamond cutters on the Upper East Side, Joe Eckstein had camped in the Berkshires as a young boy, greatly preferring the rustic beauty surrounding the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s famed summer residence in Tanglewood to the mad urban frenzy of New York City. Leaving the family business, he worked for a year at Sam Goody’s in New York (51st & 6th at Rockefeller Center), learning the retail trade and the classical market first-hand. He then set up shop in Lee, Massachusetts, 125 miles west of Boston (7 miles SE of Tanglewood, MA and 140 miles W of Lawrence, MA – birthplace of Leonard Bernstein). Originally, Eckstein’s was a more typical record store, offering front-line product, but often at discount prices, slowly building a loyal following and a burgeoning reputation. Before long, Eckstein met a wholesaler in Albany, New York (only an hour’s drive) and was soon able to significantly augment his offerings, and at even lower prices. In 1977, he decided to enter the mail-order business, running ads in a few of the prominent Boston and New York newspapers as well as in Fanfare and on the classical radio station WNYC – interested music lovers were en- couraged to request a catalog. By year’s end the Outlet’s very first catalog had been printed and sent out to a few hundred respondents, and the business as it is known today was born. In the very first years of the worldwide web, e-commerce was relatively limited, and by today’s standards, somewhat primitive – those few merchants who had any presence on the Internet at all were typically hosted on ‘electronic malls’, such as that offered by CompuServe in the early 1990s. Thus, did the Berkshire Record Outlet go ‘online’ in 1991. By 1996, the Outlet’s own site was up and running, reaching more customers than ever before, a truly global reach that found partic- ular interest among collectors in the Far East. Indeed, the website boosted the Outlet’s clientele base by several thousand customers. As their website states, the “Berkshire Record Outlet sells mainly closeouts and overruns of classical music labels at bargain prices. Our inventory also includes many film scores, original cast, jazz, blues, and world music recordings.” Over the years Eckstein has forged relationships with many distrib- utors both in the United States in Europe, buying out overstocked titles, which having gone unsold, must be cleared for incom- ing stock. However, this represents but one avenue for sourcing the Outlet’s wide-ranging inventory. In fact, numerous American distributorships, either through willfully unscrupulous business practices or by sheer incompetence fail to pay those European labels that have consigned stock to them. Such double-dealings can severely threaten a label’s sometimes tenuous hold in the marketplace. A cardinal rule of Eckstein’s business has been to provide full and prompt payment, an ethic that has paidlasting dividends in earning the confidence of business partners – in this way, the Berkshire Record Outlet has become something of the de facto distributorship for any number of European labels. In addition, as most CD manufacturing plants require minimum orders of at least 500 copies in a typical print-run, a label that would like to maintain a particular copy in its current catalog, but which holds little hope of selling more than 200 can risk another print-run knowing that Eckstein’s outfit will buy the remaining 300 copies. This arrangement has proven beneficial not only to the respective labels and the Berkshire Record Outlet, but also to consumers as well, allowing labels to maintain a fuller, more attractive catalog while providing intrepid collectors yet another opportunity to find a disc that might have otherwise all but vanished. In 2015, The Berkshire Record Outlet moved their stock to a new warehouse in Albany, New York, and their remarkable inventory only seems to grow in size and interest. The Berkshire Record Outlet is now in its 45th year and has managed to survive the increasing down- turn in the classical music industry’s fortunes. With the prevalence of downloading, digital piracy, and the advancing marginalization of classical music from the public’s consciousness, CDs have contin- ued their downward trend. In the meantime, Joe Eckstein and his staff of 14 continue to provide music lovers new, unplayed (and often pristine) CDs at unbeatable prices. Also available to music lovers are books on classi- cal, jazz, popular music, and other miscellany (over 100 titles), some CD-Rs, and even cassette tapes as well as an ever-burgeoning catalog of topline music-oriented DVDs (nearly 600 titles). Anyone who has yet to buy CDs from the Outlet will undoubtedly become a quick convert upon receiving his or her first order – just perusing its vast, rich catalog is highly enjoyable. A word to the wise: In this writer’s experience, it is most often American-sourced CDs that suffer the dreaded cut-out notches and holes. Thus, most titles sourced from Europe remain in pristine condition, as if straight off the store shelf. Of course, there are no guarantees, but something to keep in mind if perfect condition is a must. Please note: given the volume of stock and incoming orders, the Outlet cannot respond to inquiries regarding an individual title’s possible ‘cut-out’ status. Nevertheless, collectors should, as they say, buy with confidence. You won’t regret it.