Lucy's Record Shop opened in the summer of 1992 in Nashville, Tennessee. Its' original name was Revolutions Per Minute which was changed a little later and it took the name of the owner's dog.
The owner was Mary Mancini and the record store was focused in Punk and Indie Rock. A few months later, Donnie and April Kendall joined Mary Manchini as partners in the business.
As Jim Ridley puts it, in his article "A Dog's Life: The Times of Lucy's Record Shop" "From the moment it opened, in the summer of 1992, Lucy’s Record Shop was destined to close" and that's because Lucy's Record Store operation was a very special and bold project for Nashvilee".
In an area where Country music characterized, and still does, a whole population, where the big record store chains had then almost all the share of the market, Mary Mancini built a place with a lot of hard work and love trying to work competing with business giants.
Mary Mancini in front of Lucy's Record Shop with Lucy and... Lucy.
(Billboard Magazine December 1996)
Lucy's Record Shop, except from a record store, and live show venue, was a place of socialization for people who loved punk and indie rock music
In the back of the record store was a small live venue of 200 people capacity where every Friday and Saturday local bands were playing their shows.
The bands that were playing there could sell their music. If a non-local band was in the city, could perform and even sleep in the store.
Jim Ridley also wrote " Lucy’s has been the flashpoint for a small but intensely creative local music scene—a scene that has included kids, parents, poets, skatepunks, lesbian performance artists, headbangers, and disenfranchised music fans whose high-school years are long past.
Whenever movements in youth culture exploded throughout the country—grrrl power, tribalism, skacore—Lucy’s brought the blast to Nashville".
Everything comes to an end though, eventually, and for Lucy's Record Shop the end came in January of 1998.
When the record store closed that month, it was the end to a beautiful journey of 5 and a half years and left its' imprint in the local music scene. People loved it and supported it and for that reason Lucy's Record Shop's legend lives till this day.
Address: 1707 Church St. Nashville, Tennessee United States
Owner: Mary Mancini
Capacity: 200
Opened: Summer 1992
Closed: January 31, 1998
Lucy Barks - A Documentary By Stacy Goldate
A documentary called Lucy Barks! was created by Stacy Goldate from footage of shows at Lucy's shot between 1994 and 1996. A low-budget independent movie called Half-Cocked also prominently features the venue.
(February 2015, Google photo)
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