Hard time for music lovers

WITH the demise of Tower and most of the other record store chains, CD buyers are back to where they were in the middle 1960s [“For Audio Lovers, Yet Another Blow,” Oct. 22] -- back to buying CDs in music sections of department stores, with thin selections staffed by clueless employees who are only there to take your money.

I remember that store in Westwood that Mark Swed mentioned [an independent record store on Westwood Boulevard]. The employees (all male, as I remember) wore dress shirts and ties, and they knew about music. Alas, they’re long gone.

RICHARD ZUELCH

Lakewood

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YOU can add jazz lovers to your list. Most music stores don’t even carry jazz -- unless you include the elevator music known as smooth jazz. Tower Records was high-priced, but at least it had a broad selection and it did feature several dozen “picks” that you could listen to before you made a decision. Now all you can do is go to the website, listen to 30-second snippets from each cut and make a decision. Tough day for music.

RICH KAIN

Corona del Mar

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FOR independents, there’s Canterbury Records in Pasadena. I started shopping there in the early 1980s, buying up all the imported Maria Callas LPs. Without them, I would not have satisfied my Callas fetish, oops, I mean interest.

Twenty and some years later, I still go to Canterbury Records. Unfortunately, they don’t have as many imports as they did 20 years ago, but they still have a good classical and opera CD and DVD selection.

RICKY EUGENIO

Monrovia

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THANK you for generating articles about the issues with playback technology and classical music file sizes, audio quality, and now, drawing attention to the demise of a community hub -- the record store.

L.A. classical community’s most valuable human resources were spawned in places such as Tower Classical -- Dennis Bade, for instance.

It is like watching the virtuosi of the 19th century die out in the last half of the 20th -- when Rubinstein and Horowitz died -- or Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, for that matter.

Something is gone, sucked into history forever.

LINDA KESTING

Marina del Rey