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This Newburyport record store just turned 50. Here’s their secret.
“I have customers who’ve been coming in since the ’70s, who have literally explored a lifetime of music — their lifetime of music — right through that store.”
John Coyle still remembers the first vinyl he ever bought at Newburyport’s Dyno Records, back when an $8 Elvis Costello album was an extravagant buy for a local kid with a paper route.
Decades (and countless LPs) later, Dyno is celebrating its 50th anniversary with Coyle on the other side of the counter as the shop’s latest owner.
“I’ve been afforded an opportunity to sort of caretake this place into the future,” he reflected roughly 10 months into his tenure. “I have customers who’ve been coming in since the ’70s, who have literally explored a lifetime of music — their lifetime of music — right through that store.”
And as Dyno celebrates half a century of turning tables, Coyle said younger generations are also embracing physical media as they start their own vinyl collections.
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“To think about keeping this place there, so 50 years from now, they’ll be the ones who had a lifetime of music experience coming into Dyno, it feels like it’s more of a stewardship than anything else,” he added.
Finding a happy medium
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Dyno has been a Middle Street staple since 1976, when founder Richard Osborne set up shop in a downtown area on the cusp of a major transformation.
“The town’s really changed a lot,” Coyle said. “Back in the early to mid-’70s, it was kind of the Wild West down there — it was a lot of empty and boarded-up storefronts, and obviously it’s evolved into something quite different.” (These days downtown Newburyport has no shortage of upscale boutiques and high-end dining.)
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But Dyno was always a haven for music lovers seeking everything from jazz and blues to American Top 40 hits. Osborne remained at the helm until selling the business to Coyle’s predecessor — longtime customer Sally Delaney — in 2018.
Reflecting on his retirement on social media that same year, Osborne recalled seeing Dyno find its groove through vinyl’s decline in the ’80s, when the cassette boom eventually gave way to the rise of CDs.
“The digital revolution has had a powerful effect on how we listen to, find and appreciate music — there’s so much out there, and it can be overwhelmingly fast, fast, fast,” he wrote. “But I believe that has led to today’s return to vinyl, and a desire to [slow] things down a bit, to let life and art come to you and linger awhile. And listen. And hear.”
Nearly eight years later, the renewed interest in vinyl still persists. While Coyle maintains there have always been “diehard record people” just like him, Dyno’s customers now run the gamut from adults looking to rebuild their former collections, to teens fascinated by analog media.
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“It’s been gratifying to see that with all the format choices out there today — vinyl being one of them, but you can listen to music six ways to Sunday — these younger people are coming in, and they’re consciously choosing vinyl as a format that they want to embrace,” he said.
Turning tables
For Coyle, a restaurant industry veteran who previously owned an eatery down the block, taking over the record shop was an opportunity to stay local while also feeding his lifelong hobby. Growing up in nearby Rowley in the late ’70s and early ’80s, he’d take his spending money over to Dyno on Sundays to build what would become a “huge personal collection” peppered with rare and unusual finds.
“I went from one side of the counter to the other, right?” he said. “So I guess what I enjoy most is that … for a living now, I can hang around record stores and talk about music and listen to music.”
With thousands of used records on hand at Dyno, Coyle often explores the racks and plays something new on a whim. But he frequently comes back to a personal favorite, The Rolling Stones’ live album “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!”
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“It’s the one I play the most when I’m sort of stuck,” Coyle explained. “I’m like, ‘All right, I need to get my day going here. What am I going to put on to get my feet moving?’ And it’s always that record.”
Dyno’s offerings aim for broad appeal, he said, with about an even split between modern pop and “catalog” artists like the Stones, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, or Billy Joel.
“I always say it’s a no-judgment zone; people can come in and listen to and talk about any kind of music, and they don’t have to be embarrassed if they bring up something they think is dorky or weird,” Coyle said. “We love it all.”
(Yes, even peak disco: “Bee Gees [albums] fly out of the store!”)
With Coyle and Dyno’s two longtime staffers leading the charge, the shop is welcoming vinyl fans new and old throughout the month of April as it marks its 50th anniversary with listening parties, in-store performances, and promotional deals for this Saturday’s Record Store Day.
And Coyle’s plan for the next era of Dyno Records? Don’t mess with the formula.
“When I bought the place, I said to myself, ‘It’s been here for 49 years; you don’t need to change anything. You don’t need to update anything. You just need to make sure that it stays sort of a vital place where people can … come in and we can talk about music and they can get exposed to new stuff,’” he recalled.
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All those years after first stepping foot in Dyno, “it’s been such a thrill to be able to do that every single day,” Coyle added. “To do it for a living, instead of just yakking at somebody about my favorite record until their eyes roll back in their head.”
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