County Sales due to close, 17 Jan. 2018 (update)

Richard Thompson sends the staggering news that County Sales of Floyd, VA, distributors of 'the world's largest selection of bluegrass & old-time music' in CD, DVD, and book form, is due to close on 17 January 2018, according to its latest newsletter. At present the reasons for the decision are unknown to the BIB.

David Freeman (right) founded the County Records label in 1963, which ever since has played a unique role in making recorded old-time and bluegrass available worldwide. In 1965 he founded County Sales as a mail-order outlet for County Records. The late Rodney McElrea of Omagh, Co. Tyrone - Ireland's premier collector of books, recordings, documents, and memorabilia of country music - was active in encouraging this step. As David Freeman's Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame biography says, 'His first customers were in the British Isles, readers of the magazine Country News and Views' - of which Rodney was the co-editor. In recent years the business of County Records and Rebel Records has been conducted by Mark Freeman, David's son.

Update 2 Dec.: For more details, see John Lawless's 'County Sales going out of business' on Bluegrass Today. Quote (from near the end): 'there is no question that Dave Freeman deserves a great deal of the credit for keeping the music alive through some difficult early days.'

Update 5 Dec.: Thanks to Alec Somerville for these memories of County Sales:

What a place! I was there several times while playing festivals and 'conventions' in the Mountains... they had super stuff, last time I got a load of Mountain fiddler 'Snake' Chapman on cassette for Donegal master Martin McGinley, plus lots of Buddy Thomas and Ralph Blizard CDs. And even cassette recordings of champion Texas fiddler Bob Walters done in his living room. Martin, of course, immediately started to play it, including Owen 'Snake' Chapman's wild Kentucky crooked fiddlin'.

County Records has provided many people with recordings which were almost impossible to get anywhere else; of little-known musicians who helped to establish what we now call 'Old Time'... cassettes recorded in the parlour, from early US radio, and elsewhere. It is sad to see them go. I do believe that they coined the phrase 'Old Time Music - Better than it Sounds!' Which you would see on baseball caps and bumper stickers in the mountains...