For the Knoxville music community, the closing of Raven Records feels like another gut punch.
For the past nearly 40 years (aside from a few breaks), Raven Records has been an essential stop for musicians, music hounds, movie buffs and toy collectors. Crammed from floor to ceiling with rare vintage vinyl albums, movie posters and various toys and oddities, it’s long been a haven for misfits – with two major misfits, Jay Nations and Jack Stiles, standing at the helm.
In its heyday, the shop provided regular employment for musical artists, future filmmakers and promoters, who sometimes worked only for trade credit because they’d be spending their money there anyway. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, it didn’t seem like you could even HAVE a local band without at least one member having worked at Raven.
Sitting over lunch at Rami’s on Broadway, longtime buddies Nations and Stiles look back at Raven’s existence with few regrets.
Nations grew up in Kingsport and moved southwest to attend the University of Tennessee. Stiles grew up in South Knoxville and also studied at UT, where he was employed by the Campus Entertainment Board. The two met in 1980 while they were both serving on the UT Film Committee, choosing movies to be shown at the UT student center and Clarence Brown Theatre. Recognizing they shared common tastes and similar irreverent senses of humor, they became fast friends.
Nations hosted regular parties at his apartment in Fort Sanders.
“We called it ‘Pasta Theater,’” he recalls. “I was working at a video store and had access to all sorts of cool videos. Pasta’s cheap and feeds a crowd. We’d sit down and feed ourselves and watch ‘Eraserhead’ or ‘Caligula’ or something crazy.”
“Stuff you couldn’t see until we brought it [to UT],” adds Stiles.
“I got such an education in film,” says Nations. “And there I was working at a video store, so I was watching movies all day long. I got up to speed, not as much as Jack. He reads books about it and studies it. But we both had a working understanding of each other’s passions. I think he understood a little more about rock ‘n’ roll because of me.”
Stiles was working part time at the Simpson theater chain during that time, but he and Nations would still take trips to see movies that weren’t showing in Knoxville and take trips to record shows to feed their need for rare music.
Nations opened the original Raven Records on Cumberland Avenue in the spring of 1985.
“We did a few promotions together when Jack was still working at UT,” says Nations. “We had this ‘Run for the Exit’ promotion [at UT] where we’d show a really terrible movie. You could get into the movie for free, but you had to pay to leave!”
“We made about $200,” says Stiles with a chuckle.
Both became obsessed with David Lynch after seeing “Blue Velvet,” which features the movie’s protagonist finding a human ear in the grass.
“I had a promotion at the shop where I’d give you $5 off if you came in with a representation of a human ear,” says Nations. “One guy carved one out of wood, and he painted it so it looked like a bloody ear. Another guy found a rubber ear. Another brought a picture he’d drawn of an ear. I had those pinned up on a wall for a long time.”
The original Raven closed in November 1994, only a year after Nations had opened a second store, Raven West, in West Knoxville.
“It was just a perfect storm of the rent going up; Disc Exchange was eating my lunch; another shop [Underdog Records] had just opened up up the street selling indie stuff,” says Nations.
“At the end, I had nine employees and was trying to make everybody else happy. I made the least amount of money that I’d ever made and grossed the MOST I’d ever made in that last year. I just tried to do too much.”
He swore he’d never open another record store.
Nations went to work selling advertising for Metro Pulse, but the pull of dealing music was strong. A friend was planning to liquidate his record collection and asked Nations to buy it.
“It was a really good collection,” he remembers. “So I said yes and set up at a show in Asheville that next weekend, and then it was off to the races. I started figuring out how to sell records that were not my sensibilities.”
Nations began selling records online and at booths in flea markets, eventually operating five booths at different locations. In 2009, road construction was going to impact customers’ ability to visit Nations’ South Knoxville booths, so he decided to consolidate.
“I called up Jack and said, ‘Jack, do you still have all that stuff in storage that you were always talking about selling? Why don’t we open a store together and split the overhead?’ Jack said, ‘Well, I threw my keys at my boss yesterday, so that’s good timing!’”
Nations and Stiles both laugh.
Stiles had been managing movie theaters for the past many years.
“I loved the theater business,” he says. “I’d gravitated from UT to Maryland back to Knoxville to Halls [Cinemas], and at that time I was working at Carmike [Cinemas]. The guy had the gall to say, ‘If you quit right now, you’ll never work for Carmike again!’ I said, ‘What the [expletive] makes you think I’d WANT to work for Carmike again? Why do you think I’m throwing these keys at you?’”
The two decided to basically run two businesses in one store. Each would have his own cash register and take care of his own stock but would share expenses. Reviving the name “Raven Records,” but adding “and Rarities” to acknowledge Stiles’ movie memorabilia and vintage toys, the two rented a space in a Kingston Pike strip mall across from Bearden Middle School before finding a better location on Central Street in 2010.
The business quickly became one of the linchpins in the burgeoning revitalization of the Happy Holler neighborhood. Located beside the increasingly popular restaurant Central Flats and Taps and across the street from the antique shop Friends and the Time Warp Tea Room (both now gone), Raven found plenty of casual browsers, and the convenient parking and close proximity to downtown made it an easy destination for collectors. Originally open only five days a week, Jenna Hancock offered to work on Sundays for trade credit.
“She turned Sunday into a good day for us,” says Nations.
Later, the two decided they didn’t want to work on Saturdays, and film enthusiast Kelly Robinson took over those days.
Happy Holler continued to grow new businesses and clientele, and Raven seemed to be on solid ground. Nations and Stiles co-sponsored all manner of music and community events in the area, including Waynestock and Holleroo.
In 2015, Raven held a 30-year anniversary celebration at Relix Variety Theatre just up the block. Featuring the reunions of three local ‘80s bands, the event was packed.
“After that, our landlord said, ‘You guys are kind of a big deal!’” says Nations with a laugh.
In 2020, the COVID pandemic brought it all to a halt. Like other small businesses, Raven had to close to in-person sales. Yet the rent had to be paid. Raven almost closed for good then. However, local music enthusiast Chris Lamb, a longtime friend of Stiles who had just started the internet radio station Real Knoxville Music, held an online telethon featuring four hours of local musicians performing live to raise money for Raven’s rent and utilities.
“That was a godsend,” says Stiles.
“That kept my heart in it,” adds Nations. “Because I was ready to just fold then. We didn’t know how things were going to play out.”
The event raised $5,000, which kept the business afloat until Raven could re-open.
“Then we reopened with limited hours, and when Christmas came along, people had been home alone and fell in love with their records again,” says Nations. “So Christmas brought us up to a new plateau, and we’ve been able to maintain a 15-hour week since then.”
Still, the two knew there had to be an end game.
“We started having this conversation in January,” says Nations. “We’d both been asking each other for years, ‘How are we going to wrap this up?’ But after our rent went up in November, the enthusiasm for doing this was … well, we both started thinking about it.
“It’s been bittersweet. People would come in and talk to us and say, ‘I’ll be back next year,’ and we’d think, ‘No, you won’t.’ But they didn’t know that. We had our best Record Store Day ever this year.”
“Even the people we’ve told were kind of surprised,” says Stiles.
“But I’m 65 and Jack’s 85 …” says Nations.
“EIGHTY-FIVE?” interjects Stiles in mock anger.
Nations will open a new booth at Retrospect, located across the street from where Raven is now, in September. He’s opening another booth at Four Seasons, which is in the same Bearden strip mall that Raven occupied for that one year, and he has a booth at Bargain Hunters in South Knoxville and another at Southland Books in Maryville.
“It’s lower overhead, and I can swap my stock around,” he says.
He also plans on setting up at record shows.
“I’m just going back to the same business I had before I started the store,” says Nations.
“And I’ll do online stuff and maybe find a booth somewhere, dealers I can wholesale to, and I’ll do online stuff for Jay,” says Stiles. “It should all work out.”
The two plan to simply carry on as usual, opening only 15 hours per week, with no going-out-of-business sale, and close on Aug. 31.
“At the end of that day, we’ll lock the door forever,” says Stiles.
“We’ve got so much to be thankful for,” says Nations. “It’s hard to describe a better situation for both of us. We have a deep friendship, a brotherhood sort of a thing.”
“But unlike most families, we’ve never had a major argument of any sort,” says Stiles. “That’s something to hang your hat on.”
“We have complementary personalities,” says Nations. “I can be as weird as I want to be, and he can be as weird as he wants to be, and we get along.”
“And it will continue,” says Stiles. “We just have to find a place to hang out.”
Members of the music community on what Raven Records has meant to them
Benny Smith, former general manager of WUTK
Well, to me, that’s a two-part question and answer. First and foremost, Jack and Jay have been dear friends to me since the ‘80’s. The many amazing concerts that Jack brought to campus while heading up the Campus Entertainment Board (back when the CEB actually worked with others on campus to offer lots of great entertainment options) in the ‘80’s played an important role in making my UT undergrad days so fun and turned so many others on to new artists. When I was at WUTK back then, we worked with the CEB to start the UT Battle of the Bands, which helped bring even more exposure to our local music scene.
Bird Dog (Jay) was my go-to at Raven when WUTK needed to trade in our Hooters vinyl in for a record that we would actually play. We did live remote broadcasts from The Strip stores, and he and his staff supported WUTK as much as anyone in town. That continued until very recently, in fact. While it’s sad to see two of Knoxville’s longtime local legends somewhat call it a day, their influence on this town will always be there and so will their friendship. I truly love those two like brothers.
Todd Steed, musician (Smokin’ Dave and the Premo Dopes, Suns of Phere) and radio personality
All my favorite record stores have soul. My least favorite record stores have limited soul. You can’t chart the concept of soul on a graph, no consultant can come up with shiny tricks to make it happen, and it’s a very delicate thing that can be lost easily. Raven never lost it. In all the permutations and locations the soul stayed intact.
And on top of all that, working at Raven was like being in a band that had mostly good gigs. You can’t believe you get paid to laugh that hard and learn that much about music. And you meet the coolest folks on the planet, both customers and colleagues.
Viva Raven. Thanks for the soul.
Mic Harrison (Mic Harrison and the High Score)
Before I moved here all I knew about Knoxville was Smokin Dave and The Premo Dopes and Raven Records. A big part of the music scene here that I loved and wanted to be a part of, you will be missed.
Cecilia Stair, musician, educator
Without a question, Raven Records has been the happiest part of Happy Holler for a long time. I’m sure that selling records is not the easiest way to make money, and I’m very grateful to people in our community like Jay who have followed their hearts to provide us with spaces to come together and connect through music.
John Davis, musician (Superdrag, Rectangle Shades, etc.)
I started shopping at Raven in about 1991… first at the OG location, then at Son of Raven across the parking lot. When they moved down by House Of Dragon, that was a short walk from where we used to practice. I specifically remember discovering the Local tape section. (My ‘90s Knoxville tape game remains on-point.) Of course Todd Steed worked there, our families have been friends since the ‘60s so I heard all about Smokin’ Dave growing up. Later on, Brandon (of Superdrag) worked there. One of my fondest memories was the day I heard The Swamis playing in the store; I walked up to the counter and asked John Tilson who it was (not realizing that he was in the group!) He cagily replied, “Oh, it’s a local band…” and I said, “can I buy it?!!” That tape made me a fan for life. I met a couple of the guys from Fugazi in there, who I idolized. That was the day their show at Flamingo’s (or was it Arnold’s then?) got shut down and they played downstairs in the pizza place. I sat on the stage so I wouldn’t get crushed and that was one of the best shows I ever saw. I loved hanging out there; shopping, of course, but I just liked it there. Just about everybody that worked there was in a cool band that I admired, and they always made me feel welcome. Bob McCluskey used to call me “Tubes” because of my tube amps and tube socks. I could go on all day. Many fond memories of Raven. It makes me sad to think that that entire block no longer exists.
Rus Harper, musician (Teenage Love, Evil Twin, Melungeons, Neo Wizard)
Buying records was always a thrill. In the early ‘70s my brother and I would take our bikes to a suburban Marietta department store to buy the music we heard on Atlanta radio. After moving to Fort Sanders in the early ‘80s, I discovered The Last Record Store, School Kids and Cats. I found plenty of fun stuff at these stores, but Raven Records really stood out. The staff was always very interesting and knowledgeable. Todd Steed. Damn. And to me, Jay has always been the dictionary example of the record store curator with his cornucopia of music and Cool. Thank you, sir!.
Gray Comer, musician (Westside Daredevils), engineer, producer
If you’re my age, and you were into music, you spent a good amount of time at Raven on Cumberland. This is one of Knoxville’s greatest institutions we’re talking about here, and it’s a painful loss, but all good things must eventually come to an end.
Tim Lee, musician (Tim Lee 3, Bark)
In a town that has a lot of good record stores per capita, Raven is a shining star. Jay and Jack are great dudes and both a pleasure to deal with from an independent label’s perspective. Plus, Jay messaged me regularly if he got some weird thing traded in that he thought I’d be interested in. Usually Green on Red bootlegs or some such thing. The absence of Raven Records will be a loss to the community.
Wil Wright, musician (Senryu, LiL iFFy), film composer
You can get records and pop memorabilia anywhere. What you can’t get just anywhere is the thing that made Raven so special: Jack and Jay.
I am, I think, critically biased on the subject of Raven Records and its operators, but I bet their customers will back me up. The humor (usually dark, howling humor) and engagement and effortless conversation they could dial up for you has always been the draw, never mind that they both have great taste and stock. Behind the counter, Jack and Jay are a Popular Culture fluent, vaudevillian-style comedy duo, and chaos uncles of the highest order. Once they knew what you were into, you could reliably go in and get killer off the cuff recommendations.
Commerce aside, Raven was one of my very safest harbors. If I ever needed to talk about film, Sun Ra or college football, one or both of them was up for it. Every time I walked into the place they made sure I felt at home. I love them.
For a time, I worked Raven on Sundays (time for records) and it felt so cool to be plugged into these guys and their shop, which served and supported our community of listeners for decades. I never made a dime working there but I got good vinyl and even better memories.
I hear this change is seen as a relief and step forward by them, but still, as community, we must look after our special places and special people so much better.
bledsoe@blanknews.com
Loved my Sundays at Raven! Love you guys!