About Berigan's Records

     Hi, Welcome to my store's website.

 This is a virtual version of an "actual" or  physical  store located in Oakland, California.  The physical  Berigan's Records has been in  operation since  August,1992. I present the  following as a general  introduction of myself  in order to inform website  visitors that I'm  not a fly-by-night operation. That  I'm in jazz  over and for the long-haul. I've been  around  for quite a while, and further, that I  believe I  know what I'm doing.

 I have owned or CO-owned two previous  Berigan's Records incarnations. The first operated  in the Berkeley's Elmwood District for a couple of  years in the mid-1970's in partnership with a lifelong friend, Ted Hunt. This was also my first attempt at a jazz-only policy. In order to make the situation viable we took over an existing business -- a photo processing franchise (!), in order to pay the rent. Two years of struggles including no car, no home phone and oh-so-Berkeley communal living proved to be too much.

In late 1979, I entered into a partnership which became Berigan & Brown Records & CDs, located on Peidmont Avenue in Oakland. This time the store was a full-service record and cassette shop, merely "specializing In jazz". We were pretty successful for several years. For a variety of reasons, Brown decided to sell his share and left in the late 80s. A couple of years later I followed suit, deciding to take a break from 20 years in the music business, finally selling to a third party in 1988-89.

My goal, even as a teenager in Dayton, Ohio, was to be involved in the world of jazz music. To help fulfill that dream, I moved to the Bay Area in 1968. I began right away working in retail record shops. After a number of years in the "real" record business at various jobs with CBS and ABC Records doing everything from sales to store and radio promotion and advertising, I decided to try to get back to my real love -- jazz.

Over the past 35 years (I started young!) I've tried my hand at many aspects of jazz as business and pleasure: record stores, concert promotion, publicity, a jazz magazine, newspaper reviews, festival programs, nonprofit jazz organizing. Now I have this website.