As I've followed my musical path, I've met fellow travelers who've stayed in touch. Since settling in Floyd County, I've assisted in bringing many of them to Floyd to perform at various venues. Paul Rishel and Annie Raines, Catfish Keith, Paul Geremia, Steve James and Del Rey have all performed here and conducted workshops at my music store. They often they stay at my home, and in an effort to be a good host (and support the local economy), I take them on a tour of local shops, eateries and sites. Without exception the most requested stop by these folks is located down a nondescript alley just south of the town's sole stoplight. Steve James calls it "Mecca," and many like-minded fans of roots music share his adoration.
County Sales is known internationally as the best source and biggest supplier of old time and bluegrass music. They carry just about every disc put out by the major independent bluegrass and old time labels (Sugar Hill, Rounder, Pine Castle, Hay Holler, Yodelahee, 5-String Products, Acoustic Disc), and many smaller independent and self-promoted titles. They also carry books and performance DVDs of artists past and present. Like most enterprises in Floyd, there is an interesting character and story behind this endeavor. David Freeman created County Sales, a mail order company and record label. He's also the founder of Rebel Records in Charlottesville, VA.
Freeman was born and raised in New York City. Not the most likely place to be exposed to authentic old time and bluegrass music; live or on the radio. He has a degree in Classics from Columbia University, (does anyone with a liberal arts diploma apply their major to their career path?). So how does an Ivy League educated New Yorker journey from a life of declining Latin verbs and translating Cicero to digging up 78s and promoting the recordings of Ralph Stanley?
As a teenager, Freeman couldn't stomach the pop music of the time or deejays like Alan Freed who were pushing rock & roll. He first heard real country music in 1953 at the age of 14 on the car radio during a family trip from New York to New Orleans. This was before the interstate system, and as the family drove down old Route 11, he heard Bluegrass and hard country while traveling through Virginia and east Tennessee. He also heard some blues going through Alabama and Mississippi and recalls eating in a restaurant in Johnson City, Tennessee where they had two different juke boxes: one for pop music and one for country. He was stunned to see and hear music like the Stanley Brothers and Flatt & Scruggs on red label Columbia record (78s) labels, the same label that released the pop records that were all over New York.
Upon his return from this trip, he was determined to find radio stations that played rural music, both white and black. He found a New Jersey station that played all black gospel groups like 5 Blind Boys of Alabama and another that played several hours of country a day. He thought he was the only person in New York who liked country music, until he went to shows in New Jersey to see Reno & Smiley, Flatt & Scruggs and Kitty Wells. Soon he started making trips in the summer to the country music parks like Sunset Park and New River Ranch.
As soon as he was old enough to drive, Freeman began making trips south, scouring the countryside for old records (mostly 78s, but also 45s). To pay for his travels (and the records), he started selling duplicates through record auctions (which he still runs). About the time he had compiled a good-sized mailing list of Bluegrass, country & old-time record collectors, he started getting requests for LPs (the new format in the late 1950s and early '60s). A couple of record collector friends in England and North Ireland convinced him to take over supplying their mail order customers with American country LPs, which were almost impossible to find in those days anywhere outside the American South.
With those two mailing lists Freeman took a 6-month leave of absence from his job with the Railway Mail Service and tried to survive on the $500.00 he had saved up. Miraculously, the leap of faith succeeded and he never returned to his job. His mail order business (COUNTY SALES, started in October 1965) and label (COUNTY RECORDS started in 1964) found an eager audience and continued to grow. Five years later Freeman, his wife and first son found Floyd and set up shop their.
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