Strawberries Records & Tapes
Ask practically any Baby Boomer or Gen Xer from the New England suburbs where they bought most of their vinyl, tapes and CDs in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s and you’ll hear the same word again and again: Strawberries. And that’s hardly a surprise given that the chain had 81 outlets at its peak, making it the biggest music retailer in the region by far and the eighth largest in the United States.
In the decades before “downloading” and “streaming” meant anything to the average Joe, Strawberries Records & Tapes was the go-to spot for millions of music junkies, a place where they could score LPs, EPs, 45s, cassettes, 8-tracks, CDs, DVDs, posters, t-shirts, fanzines and concert tickets and see some of their favorite artists making promo appearances. The stores were playgrounds of a sort for teens and twentysomethings since they could hang with friends while doing what they did as early and often as possible: comb through album bins, admire cover art, read lyrics and liner notes and learn the names of the singers, musicians, producers and engineers who turned their rock ‘n’ roll dreams into reality. In pre-Internet New England, when the only thing better than going to a concert for the region’s air-guitar masses was rummaging around in a record shop, Strawberries became a cornerstone of youth culture, particularly in the suburbs, and working there part-time was as close to a dream job as most high schoolers could imagine.
But the chain’s adorable name belies its rather sinister underpinnings; for the first half of its 34-year existence, Strawberries was owned by mob-connected show-biz impresario Morris Levy, who Billboard magazine referred to as “one of the record industry’s most controversial and flamboyant players” and whose illegal activities resulted in him being sentenced to prison in 1988. His arrest at Boston’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel in 1986 was broadcast nationwide and Grammy-winning author Richard Carlin detailed Levy’s extensive underworld ties in his book Godfather of the Music Business (University Press of Mississippi, 2016).
OPENING, EXPANSION
Established in 1972, Strawberries opened its first stores in metropolitan areas but by the early ‘80s they were in dozens of small communities (in every New England state except Vermont) and as much of a staple in suburban malls as Spencer Gifts and Tweeter. By 1990, the chain had an estimated 26% share of the region’s music-retailing market, making it a Goliath to the David that was its biggest regional competitor, Newbury Comics.
Among the busiest stores in terms of foot traffic were the ones in Downtown Crossing and Copley Square in Boston, Harvard Square in Cambridge and at 10 Front Street in Worcester, the last of which covered two floors and was known as a prime location for out-of-print recordings and imports. Due to the number of major artists appearing at E.M. Loew’s Theatre (now The Palladium) and the Centrum in Worcester (now DCU Center), it hosted an impressive number of well-known acts including Bruce Springsteen, Blondie, Poison, Molly Hatchet, The Tubes and KISS (in full makeup and regalia), some of which performed a song or two in addition to signing albums, t-shirts, posters and whatever else happened to be handed to them.
LEVY’S BACKGROUND, CONVICTION, DEATH
Strawberries owner Morris Levy, known by friends and associates as “Moishe” or “Mo,” also owned New York City-based Roulette Records and was a founding partner of two clubs in the Big Apple, Birdland and the Roulette Room. He was a formidable figure on Boston’s entertainment scene, too, and was instrumental in landing Whitney Houston, Willie Nelson, Kool & The Gang and others for the Concerts on the Common series, according to a 1986 profile in The Los Angeles Times. Widely known in the music business for allegedly swindling artists out of their royalties, his downfall began in the mid-‘80s, when the FBI charged him with using the Roulette Room as a front for Genovese crime family boss Vincent Gigante and accused him of collaborating with organized crime figures for some 20 years.
In May 1988, after a federal trial that included tapes of conversations taken from wiretaps and listening devices planted in his phones and offices, Levy was convicted on two counts of conspiring to extort $1.25 million from a record wholesaler in Pennsylvania; he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $250,000. Following a failed appeal, he sold his interest in all 81 Strawberries stores in 1989 and died of cancer in May 1990 at age 62, two months before he was scheduled to report to prison.
TRANS WORLD ENTERTAINMENT ACQUISITION, CLOSING FACTORS
Strawberries Records & Tapes was rebranded Strawberries Music & Video in the ‘90s, but the brand vanished altogether in 2006 after being acquired by Albany-based Trans World Entertainment (now FYE), which also bought out and rebranded similar chains in the 2000s, among them Sam Goody, Record Town, Camelot, Coconuts Music & Movies, Spec’s Music, DiscJockey, Saturday Matinee, Musicland, Media Play and HMV. In April 2021, an audio restoration company in Hanson, Massachusetts, Tech Hifi, opened a vinyl-focused record shop called Strawberries Records at their Liberty Street location, but it has no connection to the once-dominant Strawberries chain.
Asked in 2022 about the reasons for Strawberries’ demise, former Lesley University professor of communication and media studies Donna Halper told Craig S. Semon of Worcester’s Telegram & Gazette that there were three main factors, in her opinion: the music industry’s switch from relatively inexpensive vinyl LPs to higher-priced CDs in the ‘80s; the technological innovations that led to rampant file sharing and downloading in the ‘90s and early ‘00s; and Levy’s irreparably tarnished reputation.
(by D.S. Monahan)
