RECORDS COLLECTORS

7 Records I’d save in a fire

Jon Wicker from The Digital Gramophone on how Uncle Tupelo changed his life, the vast record collection he was gifted and the sealed record he will never open.

Interview with David Rea

31 January 2026

Photo: Jon Wicker’s YouTube channel: The Digital Gramophone

Started collecting: 2003

Number of records: 1,800

Estimated value: $28,000-$130,000

Trace

1.

Son Volt

This is a 1995 original sealed copy I bought on eBay. It’s the only sealed record I have in my collection. Uncle Tupelo changed my life as a teenager; they opened me up to all kinds of music, and not just country-influenced music. They were also responsible for me getting into the Minutemen and even Thin Lizzy, because they name-check them in a song. But this one is my favourite record of all time. Just the songs from start to finish – it’s a perfect record. Also, just for rarity reasons, it would definitely be the first one I would grab in a fire, for sure.

How did you first get into alt-country?

There was a compilation called No Alternative that came out, and Uncle Tupelo had a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Effigy’ on there, and it just blew me away. The guitars had that kind of grungy feel to them – very Neil Young-inspired. But the way that they were singing, with that twang, it was like a Southern person. I’d never really heard that in modern, contemporary music, and there was something about it that felt like home.

Kicking Television, Live in Chicago

2.

Wilco

I saw them on this tour with my friend from college, Chris – we were both obsessed with alt-country. He was about to move to Chicago, so we had a last hurrah and went to a Wilco show together.

This is an album that’s impossible to get hold of unless you really want to pay up for it. It’s a full-length show; it’s not just select cuts. Even though it’s not the exact show I went to, it’s still of the time, you know? That is definitely one reason why it’s so special to me, because I can listen to it and vividly imagine what they had going on onstage.

Things We Lost in the Fire

3.

Low

I have an original pressing of this. One of my best friends introduced me to them two or three years before this album came out, and over the years they’ve just become one of my favourite bands of all time.

I have so many memories [associated with this album], of young love, of my first relationship, and even outside of that relationship. It scores road trips and so many other moments in my life. I was in my last year of college. I was transitioning out, looking towards the horizon. It really soundtracked a lot of those years, figuring out where I was going to go and where I was going to get my footing. A lot of tough stuff happened then too. In fact, a lot of the things that I was going through then are what made the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds so important to me. My grandmother died around that time; we were very, very close. The girlfriend I had at the time and I broke up. I also lost my job. All three of those things happened within the space of about 72 hours. It was a kind of quarter-of-a-century life crisis.

Pet Sounds was the album that got me through that stuff, because it’s an album about coming of age. With this Things We Lost in the Fire album, I have more thoughts of spending time with certain people in my life at that time, and all of those people were really important to me.

Funhouse

4.

The Stooges

This one is not valuable at all. It’s not even an original; it’s an early-1980s repress. But this one came in a collection.

Around 2005, a co-worker of mine gave me his record collection. There were, I want to say, around 700 to 800 records. At the time, you could just give somebody your record collection and they wouldn’t think twice about it. A lot of record stores were mostly selling CDs; vinyl collecting hadn’t really had its revival at that point.

I gave half of the collection to another co-worker of ours – he was a DJ – because I thought he’d get more use out of it. I’ve still kept probably around 100 of those original 800. There are other records from that collection that are probably worth more, but this is the one that makes me think of that co-worker and how generous he was.

Are you still in touch with that guy?

No, I’m not. I’ve thought about reaching out to him over the years, just to let him know how nice it was and how important it was to me. Maybe I will.

Awakening

5.

The Pharaohs

This is one I’ve only had for a couple of years but ever since I first heard it, I’ve always really wanted it. It’s funk, it’s got a little bit of jazz in it, but it’s a soul-funk record. They were based out of Chicago, and it came out in 1971. It’s just an absolutely killer album. I’m also really big into R&B, soul and funk.

That’s all my parents listened to when I was growing up. A lot of what they listened to was more radio-friendly – mostly Motown and a genre we had in the Carolinas called beach music. I’ve drawn comparisons between beach music and Northern Soul in the UK. Northern Soul had a certain beat and a dance all the kids would do. In the Carolinas we had a dance called the shag, and a lot of this music was perfect for that dance.

My parents had tonnes of beach music compilations, and it was all R&B stuff. A lot of Motown – the Temptations, the Four Tops. I attribute my love for R&B, soul, and funk to my parents. If they hadn’t played that stuff when I was younger, there’s probably no way I’d be into it as much.

This has become one of my favourite albums in my collection. It’s also in incredible shape and would be really difficult to replace. The year I got it, I probably spun it more than any other record. I rarely spin an album more than three times in a year, just because I have so many records to get through.

Ptah, the El Daoud

6.

Alice Coltrane

This was her third release on Impulse. It’s difficult to replace, it’s in impeccable condition, and you hardly ever find it like that. It’s also the most I’ve ever paid for an album.

In the late 1990s, when I was in college, that was the first time I dabbled in jazz. There were a few other students who were really into jazz, mostly because the hip hop and electronic music they listened to sampled it.

I thought some of the stuff they were into was interesting. I got into fusion artists like Donald Byrd and John Scofield. It was still the infancy of the internet, but you could find resource pages online. I found one that listed jazz albums for beginners – things like Kind of Blue by Miles Davis or A Love Supreme by John Coltrane, but also Journey in Satchidananda, which is Alice Coltrane’s most famous album.

I bought a lot of those albums on CD without hearing them first, and Journey in Satchidananda was something I just wasn’t ready for at that point. It sat on my shelf for years. Over time, I returned to it and started to appreciate it more.

She’s been super-important to me over the last seven or eight years. I’ve made it a point to collect almost all of her studio albums. Her earlier recordings are very soulful, even when they sound out there, and they’re more rooted in jazz. As her discography progresses, she becomes more devoted to her spiritual aspirations, and her music evolves into something you can’t really categorise. Her later-70s work still has elements of jazz, but it becomes more spiritual music. I’m not a religious person, but I am spiritual in some ways, and there’s something about her music that brings that out in me. I find her music very healing.

If someone told me I had to get rid of every jazz record but could keep one artist, it would be her.

The Rubáiyát of Dorothy Ashby

7.

Dorothy Ashby

This is the greatest find I’ve ever had. The place I work had boxes of records in storage that belonged to a radio station that once operated in the same building. I’d been there for about two or three years before I knew about them. (I’ve worked there for 17 years now.)

I went through one box that was full of Barry Manilow, easy listening and soundtracks, and thought there wouldn’t be anything interesting. Then, about three years ago, I went back upstairs, found a box of jazz records and found this.

The record is in impeccable shape and it’s a promo copy from a radio station – it says ‘DJ copy’ on the label. It’s worth hundreds of dollars, and I found it for free. A lot of Dorothy Ashby’s work from this period has a very soulful groove. It’s not quite funk, but it’s close, and still firmly rooted in jazz.

Do you know how much it’s worth?

My cover is pretty beat up, but VG+ copies go for around $400 to $600. I wouldn’t sell it, though. It’s an incredible record, and because of how I found it, there’s no way I’d ever part with it. If it were left behind in a fire, I’d lose that story.

Which record of the 7 would you choose if you had to choose just one?

It would probably be Trace by Son Volt, just because of how much it means to me.

Are you ever going to break the seal on it?

I’m going to keep it sealed. I have other copies because it’s been reissued, and I listen to those. It’s just nice to have an original of an album that means so much to you.