ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 16, 1997 TAG: 9703140001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG/THE ROANOKE TIMES
NORINA W. ROBERTSON is not a rich old lady, she'll tell you that herself. She just has these ... indulgences, well over 30,000 of them.
Robertson, 68, collects records, and probably owns as many as your average radio station. Local DJs have been known to go slack in the jaw and whisper, "My God," at the sight of her collection.
She's shuffled through record bins at thrift stores and the Salvation Army, and bought 1,000 45s at a time from radio stations going off the air.
"Oh, I've got a few records," she says.
In her vinyl-filled basement you'll find ABBA and ZZ Top, Black Sabbath and Engelbert Humperdinck, Boots Randolph and The Ventures. A few of her albums and old 45s are scratched and some she just can't stand.
But many have taken their turn on Chatty, her "Pioneer phonograph with the linear-drive turntable." Among her collection are gems that, if her price guides are accurate, are worth as much as $400. Well, they could be worth that much, if she were to sell them. She has no plans to do any such thing.
"Collectors collect," she says. "They don't sell."
Over time (she started collecting some 37 years ago) Robertson has developed a sense for rare records. Good vinyl makes her fingers buzz, she says, like a jeweler's fingers when they're holding a perfect emerald. "I pick up a record, and if my fingers buzz, I know it's a doozy."
It was that way when she found a Canadian release of the Beatles singing "All My Lovin'.'' Same goes for a 45 featuring "That Crazy Feeling" by Kenneth Rogers, before he was Kenny. Or the first album from Roy Head and the Traits.
"He was an Elvis wannabe," Robertson explains. "The best way to get good records is to figure out who's gonna get famous ahead of time, then get their first album."
She holds up a copy of Tammy Faye Bakker's "If It Had Not Been." Estimated value: $5. "Not enough to retire on," she says, and flips through her stack to John F. Kennedy's "High Hopes." Estimated value: $250. "That's better."
Music trivia probably takes up as much space in Robertson's brain as the medical facts she learned during her nursing career.
She knows that gold label Warner Brothers records are more valuable than those with olive labels, that the
black vinyl version of Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii" is worth more than the blue one. She knows that Fats Domino got his name because his first big hit was "Fat Man," not necessarily because of his weight.
"I never found out how Strawberry Alarm Clock got named," she laments during a conversation that jumps and skips like an overanxious phonograph needle. "It's the biggest mystery to me in the world."
Robertson's passion is Top 40. She has it stamped on the license plate of Garnet, her Honda Accord. (All of her favorite things have names. Her Canon 630 camera is Betsy. Her giant floor fan is Jennifer. Her home, a modest, brick two-story, is ``The Nest.'')
She won dinner for two by knowing who did the vocals on the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann." "Anyone who listens knows it's Dean Torrence from Jan and Dean," she says.
Her favorite questions on "Jeopardy!" have to do with pop music. Earlier this month, for instance, Alex Trebek provided this answer: Herb Alpert's record label.
The question, Robertson knew, was, "What is A&M?"
"I jumped up and down I was so happy," she says. "Of course, I didn't win anything."
Local radio personalities play her requests and answer questions when there's time during their late-night programs. Occasionally, they make requests of their own.
Bob Newton, the overnight DJ for WRDJ-FM in Roanoke and WLDJ- FM in Lynchburg, visited Robertson when she tracked down a version of Ed Townsend's "For Your Love."
"I couldn't find it anywhere," he says. "But I went over there and she had it. It had been years since I'd heard it, but she had it and a lot of other things I hadn't seen in a long time."
Robertson also chats with Sandi Conner, who has the 7 p.m.-to-midnight shift for the oldies station.
"She'll call and say, `This is the Record Lady,''' Conner says. "Sometimes I'll play a song and it'll trigger a memory. I learn a lot from her."
Often, Robertson divulges information about a group or song that Conner doesn't know. "The next time I play the song, I'll share it with our audience," Conner says. "I'd hate to play against her in Trivial Pursuit. I wouldn't have a prayer."
Robertson adores the sound of hammer dulcimers and has all eight albums by the Blacksburg/Roanoke group No Strings Attached.
"We want to contact her some time to do a history of the band," says Randy Marchany, who plays hammer dulcimer and keyboard for No Strings. "We call her our No.1 fan."
Robertson started going to see the group in the early 1980s. At the time, she was legally blind, and had been her whole life. She took taxis to the shows. Band members took turns driving her home.
"They used to tease the guy who bought me home, because he was getting out of disbanding the stage," Robertson recalls, a smile never far from her face.
She began collecting Top 40 tunes in the 1960s during what she calls the golden age of music, weathering disco, which she despises, and country music, which she can take or leave.
She can't stand rap (``it's just someone talking fast") or James Brown (``he's apt to holler"), but a little of each is still in her collection.
She has a running grudge against CD players (``they killed off my records") and the TV sitcom "Seinfeld" (``That stupid, wimpy George just drives me crazy").
But there are plenty of things she loves: new age, Celtic, rock, classical; John Denver and Roger Whittaker; her four children and seven grandchildren; life's small pleasures, like a steaming cup of her own "knock 'em dead" coffee.
She enjoys a few songs by Pink Floyd and Deep Purple and anything by Brenda Lee (``Boy that little thing can sing") or Floyd Cramer (``I heard 'Last Date' on RCA and that was it").
She loves her freedom.
Her eyesight has only improved since 1990 when a doctor operated to remove a cataract, replace a lens and adjust her cornea. She got her first driver's license at 62 and she hasn't slowed down since.
The record collection "keeps me out of mischief," she says.
Her grandchildren think she's cool because she owns albums by Metallica and David Bowie. She attended a King Crimson concert a few years ago in Cincinnati, hiring a driver to whisk her there and back. "I'll bet I was the only grandmother who fought tooth and nail to get there," she says.
Part of her mission at that concert was to get a picture of Robert Fripp, but security soon confiscated the camera, Betsy, who was wearing a zoom lens at the time.
Marchany gets tickled when he thinks about Robertson bulldozing her way toward the stage, camera in tow.
"It's just a typical Norina story," he says.
Robertson procures autographs at most concerts she attends, sending a record back stage with a security guard, along with a little note. She has autographs from Jan and Dean, The Drifters and The Kingsmen, among others.
"I'm Roanoke's Record Lady," she tells the stars. "I've had your record lo these many years. Please autograph the paper sleeve." She adds the last part because a signature on the label can devalue the record. No one has ever refused her request.
Robertson has worked all of her life. Even when her vision was poor and she had to hold papers and charts inches from her face, she worked in public relations, then as a shipping clerk, and in between as a dishwasher. She became a licensed nurse in 1970 and keeps up her license even today, because you just never know. A temporary job as a private nurse, for instance, covers some extras, like a trip to San Diego to visit her daughter.
Evenings, she sits in her den, armed with a box of plastic bags, a sheet of stickers and some record cleaner.
Top 40 records get a red sticker and a green sleeve. Green stickers show how much her records are worth.
She serves as secretary for an oldies' dance group, takes singing lessons, bowls in two leagues, and collects advertising coffee mugs that have a certain type of crook in the handle.
Her basement also contains a collection of books that she used to read before she could get out and drive. But she doesn't keep that collection up anymore, she says.
"I don't have time for everything."
LENGTH: Long : 152 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. Norina Robertson'sby CNBgrasp of pop music trivia astounds even the most knowledgeable area
experts. 2. She spends her evenings (below) cataloging and cleaning
her collection. color.