County Sales: the Omagh connection

As you can see from the sidebar, the original Bluegrass Blog carries a long interview with Dave Freeman, founder of County Records and County Sales, the premier supplier of bluegrass and old-time music records. Dave Freeman's recollections include the fact that County Sales were sending records to customers outside the US right from the start:

As a matter of fact, that is how we really got started into the business full time, by taking over supplying American country LPs to European customers for a British country music magazine (Country News & Views) that had such a service but then lost its USA supplier in Nashville. So we took over...

Charles Newman of Lowestoft, Suffolk, and Rodney McElrea of Omagh, Co. Tyrone, were responsible for Country News & Views at that time. Rodney - an outstanding country-music record collector and an Irish national treasure - has taken part in the McAuley Lectures series at the Omagh festival for the past few years with Prof. Jack Bernhardt, and has mentioned his connection with County Sales in those early years.