In the bustling Folk Arts Rare Records shop in City Heights, owner Brendan Boyle is flipping through a cardboard box of records.
"There's really important blues recordings … Tampa Red … Son House … early Portuguese string music," Boyle rattled off
When asked if we could listen to "Portuguese String Music 1908-1931," Boyle said he had never heard the record before — an experience he says never gets old.
"Music's a whole universe. It's intimidating, but just let it intimidate you — and listen to it," Boyle said.
"It's a collection of music from 1908 to 1931. Came out 1989. And I'm sure Lou knew the person at this record label."
At Folk Arts, it seems like everything leads back to its founder — the late folk music legend Lou Curtiss.
Curtiss passed away at 79 in 2018, four years after selling the store to his longtime employee, Brendan Boyle. And Folk Arts is still going strong, with two locations now.
It was my favorite place. It's considered to be kind of magical and it felt like a roadside attraction.Brendan Boyle, Folk Arts Rare Records
"I bought Folk Arts book arts in 2014. I started shopping there in, I believe, the year 2000 when I was 18. I loved it. It was my favorite place. It's considered to be kind of magical and it felt like a roadside attraction," Boyle said.
The legacy of Lou Curtiss
Curtiss opened Folk Arts Rare Records in July 1967, shortly after he launched the influential San Diego Folk Festival. Along with his wife, Virginia Curtiss, he ran the shop and the festival for decades. He even hosted a weekly jazz radio show — all in pursuit of sharing music and supporting musicians.
"(Curtiss) was in a unique place and time, having been exposed to a lot of legendary music as a child — going to legendary concerts as a kid, learning a lot about famous music that was being released at the time — this was the late ‘50s, early ‘60s," Boyle said.
Curtiss also spent his youth volunteering for the Civil Rights Movement, working as a community organizer in the '60s and was instrumental in the Folk Revival movement, Boyle said.
"And essentially what Lou did is, when folk music stopped becoming a fad, he just kept on going," Boyle said. "Because he grew up with it and really believed in bringing a younger generation that was enthusiastic and wanted to learn — and leaned a little bit more liberal and countercultural — and have them learn from one another with an older generation, often times visiting from rural parts of the country like Appalachia, Louisiana Cajun Country and playing these really old styles of music."
The San Diego Folk Festival later evolved into the Adams Avenue Roots Festival after Folk Arts moved to Adams Avenue in 1977. That festival eventually became Adams Avenue Unplugged, with Curtiss remaining involved.
Curtiss’ obituary at the Library of Congress named him a mentor to the likes of Tom Waits, Buddy Blue and Joan Baez. He was renowned nationwide, but his deepest impact may have come through the sum of countless small moments inside his humble record store.
"If people had the right level of curiosity and wonder, he'll answer your questions all day long,” Boyle said. "You'd be amazed at the amount of knowledge he had."
Watch the documentary "Recordially Yours, Lou Curtiss" on PBS here. The film, released in early 2025, was created by filmmakers Yale Strom and Elizabeth Schwartz with BlackStream Films.
Record stores as music ecosystems
Andrew Mall, a professor of music at Northeastern University in Boston, studies media, music consumption and collecting. He said record stores — and the people who work in them — are crucial to local music scenes.
The people who are working at these stores in part are doing it because they love the music. It's not just another job.Andrew Mall, Professor of Music, Northeastern University
"The people who are working at these stores in part are doing it because they love the music. It's not just another job," Mall said. "They know a lot about music. They've listened to a lot of music. They typically go to a lot of shows, a lot of local shows. Oftentimes there's people in bands or people that work with bands. So there's this whole connection to the live music economy."
Mall added that in many cities, including San Diego, record stores function as gathering places where people share influences and resources.
"Research that I've read on do-it-yourself music scenes, it so often talks about the importance of physical spaces in enabling local music cultures," he said.
The Lou Curtiss Whimsical Collection
Folk Arts recently acquired Curtiss' vast personal collection of physical media.
Boyle estimates it includes more than 100 boxes of vinyl records, CDs and cassettes, plus Curtiss’ legendary mixtapes and meticulous archive notebooks.
While there are many large record collections, Boyle said Curtiss' stands out.
"What makes this collection especially unique is the fact that Lou was a unique character,” Boyle said. "His life was very unique and very interesting and his knowledge and his passions were really unique."
For many of the albums, Curtiss knew or mentored the artist — or had a hand in the production.
One example is Tom Shaw.
"You never see this record,” Boyle said, pulling out a vinyl copy of Shaw's 1972 album "Blind Lemon's Buddy."
"He was a local San Diegan. Cover photo taken in Lou's living room by Virginia Curtiss, and it's collectible, it's valuable and really good."
Shaw, a preacher in southeast San Diego, wandered into Folk Arts in the early 1970s looking to buy guitar strings. Curtiss didn’t sell strings, but he wanted to know more about Shaw’s music.
"Of course Lou was like, 'Have a seat,'" Boyle said.
The two became friends. Curtiss helped him record and perform more — and Shaw would eventually tour internationally.
Folk Arts and the vinyl's modern resurgence
Today, Folk Arts Rare Records is something of a scrappy museum of American music and stories like Shaw's.
The store is chock full of vinyl, CDs and cassettes from around the world, spanning genres and generations. There's also a listening station — staff will open almost anything and let you hear it.
The clientele is diverse, with many young shoppers browsing records — a sign of renewed interest in physical media.
Mall said vinyl has endured a rollercoaster of production and listening trends — outlasting several potential obsolescences with the rise of CDs and again with digital streaming.
"The way that scholars talk about the vitality, let's call it, of vinyl records is that during the '90s there are really three communities that were keeping pressing plants afloat. One community was the DJ community," Mall said.
Hip-hop and dance DJs at nightclubs created steady demand for vinyl pressings of new releases, an important market for labels. Indie rock and punk communities also kept vinyl alive, as did audiophiles, who preferred the audio quality of records.
Over the past decade, Mall said, investment in vinyl production has grown again.
"So you start to see we call it boutique pressing plants pop up throughout the United States and now there are many all over the place," he said. "There's an endurance on the industry side too."
'Bombastic' sounds at Part Time Lover bar
Since 2022, Folk Arts has also operated a second shop tucked in the back of the North Park listening bar Part Time Lover, where staff curate nightly "guest selector" DJs.
The shop stocks music selected to complement the bar's powerful sound system.
"For lack of a better word — something that's awe-inspiring — whether it's like a beautiful piece of music or it's bombastic or everything in between," Boyle said. "So we stock a lot of things that are kind of hi-fi, big sound, whatever that might be and mix it with all styles of music."
Folk Arts staffer Sergio Valdes, like Boyle and Curtiss before him, thrives on igniting a spark in shoppers and guests.
"Something Brandon and I have been very much about from the beginning is trying to show people to be curious about it. Everybody's had conversations about wanting to showcase all kinds of music, like eclectic, diverse styles, eras, places," Valdes said.
Boyle described the Part Time Lover selection as an extension of staff picks.
"Ultimately, it's just a daily and nightly collaboration by a bunch of music dorks. And that's who we are," Boyle said.
Ultimately, it's just a daily and nightly collaboration by a bunch of music dorks.Brendan Boyle, Folk Arts Rare Records
Mindfulness, ritual and a love of music
When Boyle talks about records, it's easy to imagine the teenager who first walked into Folk Arts, curious and hungry for music.
For him — and for Curtiss and countless other collectors — a love of physical media is rooted in community.
"What I love about this place in particular is everybody that's involved with this place is constantly sort of teaching everybody else," Boyle said. "We learn a lot from customers, customers learn a lot from us. So there's always this dialogue of knowledge and 'Hey, have you heard this record before?' Which is a big part of collecting music media."
Mall said the resurgence of physical media suggests a fatigue for digital and intangible culture.
"There's that scene in 'High Fidelity' where he's rearranging his record collection autobiographically and all of Rob's friends are like, 'Whoa,' and they kind of take a step back because that sounds like a never-ending project," Mall mused.
Note: The following film clip contains brief profanity.
For Mall, it doesn't have to be complicated — just accessible and authentic.
"When I think about how I am building out my collection and when I talk to people about how they might focus their limited resources in order to build a collection that they're happy with, that's one thing that I suggest, not necessarily to focus autobiographically, but to come up with some kind of guiding ideas, principles, whatever, so that you are buying records that are meaningful to you, that you want to listen to, that don't just sit there and collect dust," he said.
Mall also noted how physical media stands out from streaming or digital formats, reflecting a desire for ritual, focus and intentional listening.
You can't just press play and then let it go for hours and hours and hours.Andrew Mall, Professor of Music
"All these trends where you're investing time into doing something that's meaningful and special — for a lot of people that's putting on a record or similarly for the cassette trend, I think, choosing a cassette and popping it into a tape deck and and spending time listening to that, flipping it in both examples, too," Mall said. "You can't just press play and then let it go for hours and hours and hours."
How to own a piece of Lou Curtiss' collection
Boyle said it could take years for Folk Arts staffers to comb through Curtiss' collection. Some — what he called "the really priceless stuff" — will be added to an ongoing archive at UCLA.
Most, however, will be sold at both Folk Arts locations, marked with a commemorative "Lou Curtiss' Whimsical Collection" sticker.
"We're getting the music out into the community," Boyle said. "That's what he would have wanted."
We're getting the music out into the community. That's what he would have wanted.Brendan Boyle, Folk Arts Rare Records
Mall said the prominent music archives are significant and valuable — but even when held at public institutions, they can be challenging for the public to browse or enjoy.
"Not hard to get to, but hard to get to, right?" he quipped.
So what Folk Arts is doing with Curtiss' collection is exciting to music sociologists like him.
"If the people who are building these collections are doing it in part out of a desire to preserve music, then this is one way to ensure that that music gets preserved. To circulate it amongst hundreds, maybe thousands of individual users to — many of those people may have very small collections where it actually does get listened to a lot. So I think for that reason alone, I think that's a great idea," Mall said.
Items from the Lou Curtiss Whimsical Collection are already making their way to the shelves at both Folk Arts Rare Records locations.
