So, I think I really first started hearing Sun Ra on WRTI, which is — I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware; it’s 20 minutes away from Philadelphia. So, even though it’s a different state, Wilmington is basically a suburb even though it’s its own metropolitan area, with its own personality and history. On another level, it’s a suburb of Philly too, I mean because of the TV stations we get are basically Philadelphia TV stations. So, Sun Ra was living in Germantown, Pennsylvania, which is right outside of Philly. And I used to hear a lot of Sun Ra on WRTI, which was a college radio station at Temple University. And especially a show they had that will come on the weekends, like around 12:00 midnight, or 1:00. I just remember really being turned on to Sun Ra, and it kind of flipping my head out.

 

Now, there was a record store in Philly called 3rd Street Records. It was either 3rd Street Jazz or 3rd Street Records, I forgot the name of it. But it had all the Saturn Records, all of them. I mean, in fact I think the guy that ran the store actually was involved with the label. So, getting Sun Ra records around the Wilmington, Delaware area, which is right outside of Philly, was no problem. You could find the rarest, and the hardest to find things in all the — things that have been put out on their own label, you know, where they had very few pressings, they were readily available in those days in that area just by going up to Philly.

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