Tower Records

Tower Records started in the back of a Sacramento drugstore owned by Russ Solomon's father. The name came from the Tower Theatre on Broadway in Sacramento. Russ turned a record rack into an empire of music retail that defined the culture of buying music for three decades.

The Sunset Boulevard flagship in Los Angeles was sacred ground. Musicians shopped there. Elton John once spent $25,000 in a single visit. The stores were staffed by obsessive music nerds who could guide you from the Beatles to Beefheart. Tower wasn't just a store; it was a community institution.

Then Napster arrived in 1999, and the economics of selling physical music collapsed. CD sales dropped 50% in five years. Tower filed for bankruptcy in 2004, restructured, then filed again in 2006. The liquidation sale was the busiest the stores had been in years. The Sunset Boulevard location is now a Gibson Guitar showroom. The documentary 'All Things Must Pass' captured the rise and fall.