13 Things You Didn't Know About Sam Goody

I found this list of facts about the Sam Goody music store chain and Sam Goody the person (yes, the chain was founded by a "Sam Goody"!).

13 Things You Didn't Know About Sam Goody

I thought this promotion he came up with was really interesting:

 

I can only recall the mall years in the 1990s for Sam Goody. By then prices were pretty high for their stock. I remember browsing there far more than actually purchasing from Sam Goody, which may be why it went out of business.

I will say that Sam Goody was the first place I learned about DCC's gold CDs. I remember their higher-than-normal pricing and putting them back in the rack. Of course, a few years later I'd end up spending much more for the DCCs when they became collectibles.

 

Nice article. I still have a ton of still sealed stuff I bought at Sam Goody's Going Out Of Business sale here in Denver. Someday I'll get around to opening it all!

 

"Some day I'll listen to this". Yeah, i say that too... Good luck.

 

I haven’t thought about them in years. There was a Sam Goody’s in our local mall when I was in high school. My final memory was when they were phasing out 8 Tracks around 1980 or so and were selling them 4 for a dollar. I hated 8 Tracks, but I picked up Metal Machine Music, Fly and two others for a buck.

 

I worked in a Sam Goody's in Raleigh back in the 1970s. A great store, deep inventory, competitive prices, customer-friendly mind set. Fond memories. But eventually the low pay, along with working nights and weekends moved me into the 9-to-5 world.

But the later incarnation of Goody's was a pale imitation.

 

I don't know all the details but I'm pretty sure American Can was out of the picture in the early 90s. By the mid-90s, when I worked there, there was no mention of American Can at the HQ and it was a publicly traded company.

#11 mentioning that American Can sold it to BBY doesn't sound right because Am Cam was out of the picture a decade or more before that.

 

I think Musicland bought them, hence the watered down version compared to early days.

 

Excellent store.

 

14. Goody Got It.

...unless...you already knew that...

 

I worked at the Goody in Falls Church, VA around '89-90. I got asked a lot about New Kids on The Block and Janet Jackson cassette singles which went for $2.99. We sold an almost equal amount of CDs and cassettes but our vinyl section was minimal by then. I remember many of the CDs were $16-17 (I'm not discounting the penny) which was a lot back then. Album cassettes were usually $9.49 or $1049. We also sold a decent amount of Classical and a lot of VHS. The employees did try to elevate the music for our customers with They Might Be Giants and Stone Roses, but I don't thing it made much of an impression. My manager was from West Virginia and grew up in one of those households where they don't brush their teeth (and pay for it later). I did learn a lot about music like that Jethro Tull was a band and not a person.

 

I bought a ton of CDs from that location while you worked there. Hadn't thought about that place in many, many years.

 

Very cool! I think the area was called Seven Corners and from google earth pictures looks to be a home depot now. I wonder if my 19 year old self ever rang you up or helped you find something.
Did you shop at The Whiz and Tower Records too? I actually found the best selection and decent prices at the latter.

 

Was the chain actually sold to Best Buy in 2000? That seems fairly late as well, Best Buy was already in CD sales at that point, no?

 

I shopped most of the local record stores and spent a lot of time back then at the mall as a young teen, so probably. Since it was closer to home, I also shopped Kemp Mill Records. A couple decades ago, they converted the entire indoor mall into a regular strip mall, pulling in big box stores like Home Depot and Ross. Nothing remains of the retailers that were once there. I still have fond memories of the Woolworth's inside Seven Corners.

 

I remember going to Kemp Mill records and paying $5.99 for Led Zeppelin LPs back in the mid 80s. I also seem to recall that Woolworth's which still had a soda stand. What I didn't realize was that Seven Corners was the biggest retail center in Virginia when it opened.

 

I ran off to NYC in 1974 as a teenager. First stop: pizza. Second stop: Sam Goody's! Coming from the boondocks, I couldn't believe my eyes or ears in that place!!

 

That was a better article than the typical clickbait things I see.

When American Can bought them, though, it was all over.

 

The NYC Times Square store in '77 was caught selling hundreds of mafia counterfeit "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack albums. It really destroyed their rep for years. They were all over the NYC area at $5 each when it was #1.

 

I frequented the 49th Street store in Manhattan during the late 1980’s, mostly for window shopping as their prices were very high. I did but my first three CDs at their West 57th Street location during the summer of 1985 and still have two of them.