River Records says owner Jerry Gibson killed Thursday
Jerry Gibson sold records and comic books for decades, operating from a cluttered store on Highland Avenue and winning a reputation as a knowledgeable collector who liked to bargain with customers. The 79-year-old was killed Thursday afternoon inside his store, called River Records, and police are investigating it as a robbery.
A brother of Gibson's Donuts founder Lowell Gibson, who died in 2011, Jerry Gibson was well known within the music community and his death prompted many people to post memories online.
Memphis ties 1993 record of 213 homicides
Some people are posting an amateur video uploaded to Youtube in 2007. In the video, the cameraman enters the store and walks viewers around its haphazardly stacked records and comic books. The narrator explains that none of the items are priced, so shoppers have to sort out the details at the counter with the owner, Jerry. "You got to be really nice to him or he'll kick you down," the narrator says. "He kicked me down already, so it's all good."
A moment later, Jerry agrees. "If you come in with a bad attitude, I'll treat you with a bad attitude," the store owner says. "But we love customers." He shows a recent photo of himself with the movie actor Matt Dillon, who he said had just come in and bought some prewar blues 78s.
Customers who brought a stack of records to the front of the store had to be prepared to talk, said Greg Cartwright, a record collector and singer in the rock band the Reigning Sound. The conversation was about the price of the record. "But was also really about your relationship with him," he said. "Whether you had one already or were just starting one, that was how you communicated." He'd ask about your family and your taste in music.
Some people didn't like shopping this way, said Cartwright, 45. "Being that nothing is priced, and you have to come up and have a half-hour conversation with the guy before he's going to price the record for you, some people might be really be put off by that," Cartwright said. "With a generation of people who are used to instant gratification, they just want to go up to the counter and give the guy a credit card and get the (expletive) out of there. It's not about the human connection. And with Jerry, it really was about the human connection."
He said Gibson had a deep knowledge of music, particularly prewar blues, early rhythm and blues and doo-wop. Cartwright now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, but would frequently visit the record store on visits home.
Music author Ron Hall works in the record resale business too, and first met Gibson by competing with him to buy old records at estate sales, thrift shops and other sites. Gibson frequently managed to arrive first, said Hall, 66. "I never could figure out how he did it. He would get there and have a big stack of records. It was a little irritating. But we got to be friends after a while."
For local record collectors, the death of Gibson is one of the most hurtful losses imaginable, because everybody knew him, Hall said. Regardless of what they thought of Gibson, "usually they would just shake their heads and go 'man that guy's a trip. I have so much fun going in there.' "
Hall said that for years, he had anticipated someone might try to rob Gibson because he'd tell favored customers about big sales. "He liked telling you 'Oh three Japanese guys came in last week, bought $1,500 worth of stuff.' Two guys from England was here yesterday. One bought a $600 album, one bought this.'" Perhaps someone overheard these conversations and imagined they could steal a lot of money by robbing Gibson, Hall said.
Cartwright, the musician, likewise confirmed that Gibson often dealt in cash and people might have believed he had a lot of money — but he said that belief was probably mistaken, because he didn't do a lot of business. "I think whatever they got was very little and in no way worth a man's life."
