Golden Oldies : After 100 years, those Gaudy, jukeboxes are costing nostalgia buffs a princely sum.
Jukebox. The mere mention of the word stirs rose-colored images of ’57 Chevys, bobby socks, thick French fries, pompadour haircuts and blue suede shoes. Think about it. Did Little Richard, squealing “Lucille,” or Chuck Berry, asking why “Maybellene” just couldn’t be true, ever sound better than when booming through an oversize jukebox speaker? No way.
And now this gaudy, noisy, overmodulated symbol of 1950s American youth, marking its 100th anniversary this year, is in the midst of a cultural revival. The “Fonz” may be in reruns, but jukeboxes, with some reconditioned models fetching as much as $15,000 in the United States and nearly $40,000 in Japan, are still prime entertainment.
“They’ve become like paintings,” said jukebox collector Mike Dorrough, 47, on why prices have skyrocketed. “They’re now being bought by investors.” Customers run the gamut from junkyard owners to movie producers such as Steven Spielberg and rock ‘n’ roll stars Mick Fleetwood and Tom Petty. Collectors estimate that about 1,000 people own jukeboxes on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley.
Ten years ago, a couple of hundred dollars could buy a serviceable machine, Dorrough said, but now popular models such as the Wurlitzer 1015 are in the five-digit price range. Known as the Bubbler because of the flowing bubbles that went up both sides through eight colored tubes, the 1015 is most often seen as a background prop in the ‘80s TV sitcom “Cheers.”
“There’s been a wave of nostalgia sweeping the country for about 20 years now,” explained Russ Ofria, 42, an electro-mechanical engineer who has 25 jukeboxes in his Northridge home. The craze began with “people fixing up old cars, now it’s things like jukeboxes.”
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It was at a saloon in San Francisco on Nov. 23, 1889, that someone installed a coin slot in a Thomas Edison phonograph, creating the first jukebox. By the 1930s and ‘40s, the two decades considered the pinnacle of the business, a dozen companies were producing them. It was that era, explained Don Muller of Granada Hills, that generated the styles most people remember today.
Muller, who owns dozens of antique jukeboxes, is also the owner of Jukeboxes For Rent. For a minimum of $160 a day, he will bring to your Saturday night ‘50s party a 1955 Seeburg or 1975 Rockola, programmed with the records you request, install it and let everyone remember the days of poodle skirts and ponytails. Ninety-five percent of his business is rentals, Muller said, although he occasionally will sell a “plain Jane” machine that he thinks will never become a true collector’s item.
Muller originally set up business in West Los Angeles after moving here from Phoenix in the late 1970s. Two years later he moved the business to Granada Hills when he realized the majority of his customers lived in the Valley. Today, Valley clients make up about 75% of his business.
He also owns an antique jukebox rebuilding business in Guadalajara, but almost all of those machines go straight to Japan.
“There is one model of an American machine still used in Mexico, a Continental, that there are thousands of,” he said. “So we’re telling wholesalers in Japan that this is the hot one, this is the next craze. We chrome them up, and they’re jumping on them.”
“These have got to be the ugliest jukeboxes in the world,” said Muller, who said they reminded him of an old-fashioned hair dryer. “I was so embarrassed with the only one I had here in 17 years of business I sold it out of my home. They’re the goofiest looking things in the world, but in Japan they’re the hot item.” Muller said that when he sells them for about $8,000, there are so many middlemen that the eventual Japanese consumer will pay up to $40,000.
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Danton Burroughs, 44, cashed in his entire U.S. airmail stamp collection 13 years ago to buy his first jukebox, a Wurlitzer 950, from a man in Colorado he had heard about. “The owner wanted $4,000 for it, so I got the money together and wired it to him. A friend of mine picked up the machine and brought it back.” Burroughs said it is now worth about $35,000.
The proud owner of 12 jukeboxes, Burroughs, the grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs and a director of the company that licenses the “Tarzan” name, said he has them in every room of his Tarzana home, some loaded with Dixieland and early jazz records, others with country and western, still others with a cappella.
“A lot of baby boomers are remembering all those tunes and the excitement of having something unique in your home,” he said. “It’s the versatility of the machine and the music that just thrills us to our marrow.”
“The sound that comes out of a jukebox is unique,” explained Sam Epstein, 36, of West Los Angeles, who is a buyer for Rhino Records. When guests spy his 1958 Seeburg 201 for the first time, Epstein said they all ask to play it. “They can’t wait to get their hands on it. It’s got its own magic sound.”
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Push any combination of buttons on Rick Naatz’s jukebox and it will always play an Elvis Presley tune. It doesn’t matter what buttons are pushed; that’s all Naatz will allow in the machine. “No other record would go in there for a million years,” he said of the 1955 Seeburg Model J loaded with 50 records in his bedroom. Naatz used to have two jukeboxes, but an ex-girlfriend took the 1964 Wurlitzer when they split up 10 years ago.
“It’s very soothing,” said Naatz, 36, a Brentwood truck driver. “It’s like an aquarium. Some people like to watch them. When I come home from work I’ll put it on and it makes me feel good.” But he has a familiar problem--his girlfriend of two years. “She can’t stand Elvis,” he said. “I play it but she sometimes walks out.”
Mike Dorrough, who manufactures broadcast equipment, has jukeboxes stashed all over his Woodland Hills home and a record collection he puts at 1 million discs.
“The living room has a 1938 Seeburg Commander, a Wurlitzer Victory and a Wurlitzer Cabaret,” he said proudly. “Our bedroom is down to just a 1940 Wurlitzer 750, though, but there’s a couple out on the porch, some more in the garage, and oh yes, Grandma’s room has a 1938 Seeburg Crown. I just love them.”
Jukeboxes also have gained renewed popularity in the restaurant business, as a growing number of ‘50s eateries, such as Johnny Rockets and Ed Debevic’s, request machines to fit into their themes.
“Restaurants want something with a curved top, where they can see the records and it sounds good,” explained Mike Pearlman, 40, owner of Jukeboxes 4 Fun in Santa Monica. The company supplies machines and records for about 40 ‘50s restaurants in Southern California and as far away as Chicago, Atlanta and Minneapolis.
“It represents the ‘50s time when there was no real pressure and everybody was pretty happy,” he said. “I’ve seen guys come up and kick it and say, ‘Hey, I’m Fonzie,’ and not hurt it. Back in the ‘50s they made things pretty strong.”
Pearlman also has a couple of machines in his Woodland Hills home, and he prefers Seeburg for its durability. “They’re the best,” he said. And when he presses the buttons for his favorite record, it’s “Flip, Flop and Fly” by Joe Turner that goes for a spin.
While restored antiques such as Wurlitzer’s 1015 Bubbler can cost well over $15,000, new machines are still being manufactured by Wurlitzer, Seeburg, NSM, AMI and Rockola. The last, Rockola, isn’t a play on “rock ‘n’ roll,” but was the manufacturer’s real name, David C. Rockola.
The Antique Amusement Company, a Sherman Oaks retail store specializing in jukeboxes, carries only Wurlitzers. “They’re the best jukeboxes made and always have been,” said manager Paul Reno, 19. Starting with the model SL600 at $2,695, the current line includes a new, unique compact disc jukebox holding up to 50 CDs. If you still have your heart on that 1946 model 1015 bubbler seen on “Cheers,” however, Wurlitzer is marketing new ones for $4,995. Antique Amusements sells 400 new jukeboxes a year.
For most collectors, however, it is the restored original that is dearest to their hearts.
“I bought a 1960 Seeburg, one of the first stereo boxes,” said Barry Hansen, 47, of Sherman Oaks, also known as Dr. Demento on radio station KLSX. Saying it rekindled memories of when he was a child begging his mother for nickels to put in the jukebox, Hansen has stuffed his machine, not unexpectedly, with an eclectic mix ranging from the ‘50s to current sounds. Included are Weird Al Yankovic, Captain Beefheart, Roy Rogers singing “San Fernando Valley,” “Liar, Liar” by the Castaways and “40 Miles of Bad Road” by Dwayne Eddy.
Northridge jukebox collector Larry Ready, 49, is a little more traditional with his record selection, explaining that he changes the songs with the seasons from his collection of about 600 records. Junkyard owner Ready bought the first of his three machines--two Seeburgs and a Rockola--four years ago.
Despite the resurgence in jukebox collecting, Don Muller feels that their future in restaurants and bars is limited. “It has been dying for the last eight or nine years.
“When I grew up, every drugstore had a soda fountain and a jukebox. Every restaurant had one, too. Now they’re only in truck stops, beer bars and ‘50s diners. And with the new ones taking compact discs, it’s going to cost $600 just to stock them,” he said.
Muller will also tell you that he’s in jukeboxes strictly as a business, and that it was never a hobby--until someone asks if there’s any machine he’d really love to own. “Oh sure,” he said quickly, “I’d love an AMI Singing Tower,” a rare machine he has been trying to get for years.
“A jukebox seems to set the tone and relax people to a certain extent, sometimes becoming melancholy,” reflected Ready. “You don’t talk as much, and you find yourself reflecting back. You can look at a jukebox and think of the individuals who sat in a restaurant and listened to music. Jukeboxes seem to tell a story even when they’re not on.”
