Josh Turner’s I Serve a Savior is being released on vinyl tomorrow (March 8th), and part of his love for actual records stems from his grandmother’s collection.
“My first recollections of vinyl records actually came from when I was really, really young when my daddy’s mama would babysit me. I called her Granny, and she had a huge record collection in her house, and most of her records were either southern gospel or bluegrass or country, a lot of the Opry stars,” recalls Josh. “I remember her having records from Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb and Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings and the Osborne Brothers and the Stanley Brothers and there’s just all the southern gospel quartets that were out back in those days. I acquired a good many of those records, I’m proud to say.”
When he was a college student in Nashville, he discovered a rare find in a local antique store. “One of the coolest finds that I made there in Nashville was actually the Johnny Cash Ring of Fire record,” says Josh. “When I brought it home and opened it up, I realized that Johnny Cash had actually taken a ballpoint pen and actually signed the label on it, which was pretty cool.”
Josh returns to Nashville’s historic Grand Ole Opry House for an Opry performance and in-store signing on Friday.
Audio / Josh Turner says his grandmother's vinyl collection is responsible for his musical foundation.
DownloadJosh Turner (grandmother’s vinyl collection) OC: …musically. 1:05
“My first recollections of vinyl records actually came from when I was really, really young when my daddy’s mama would babysit me. I called her Granny, and she had a huge record collection in her house, and most of her records were either southern gospel or bluegrass or country, a lot of the Opry stars. I remember her having records from Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb and Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings and the Osborne Brothers and the Stanley Brothers and there’s just all the southern gospel quartets that were out back in those days. I acquired a good many of those records, I’m proud to say, but she always had some kind of music like that going in her house, and it was just that rootsy, earthy, Americana style, just real traditional country music, bluegrass, gospel kind of music, and that’s kind of where my foundation was laid musically.”
Audio / Josh Turner recalls a great vinyl record find in a Nashville antique store and talks about how many records are in his collection.
DownloadJosh Turner (amount of vinyl) OC: …the years. :48
“Even when I moved to Nashville and started going to Belmont as a college student, I would go around to antique stores there in Nashville and one of the coolest finds that I made there in Nashville was actually the Johnny Cash Ring of Fire record. When I brought it home and opened it up, I realized that Johnny Cash had actually taken a ballpoint pen and actually signed the label on it, which was pretty cool. But as far as a number of how many that is in my personal collection – if I had to take a guess – I’d probably say 2, 300 maybe. I don’t think it’s any more than that, but yeah, I have quite a few [laughs] that I’ve collected over the years.”
