When he was 14, Bucks Burnett met Neal Smith, the drummer for Alice Cooper, at a concert. He told Burnett his eye makeup was better than Alice Cooper’s, and he gave him a backstage tour.
That began a series of encounters with music legends. Burnett’s ability to meet rock stars — among them Pete Townshend, all four members of Queen, Jimmy Page and in one momentous 24-hour period, Joni Mitchell (a “goddess,” by his account) and Bob Dylan — provided fodder for the “Namedropper” column in the Dallas Observer and created a job opportunity. (By the way, Burnett’s yet to meet Keith Richards, but he’s determined to make his acquaintance.)
Burnett had seen Tiny Tim perform several times in the ’60s, and he developed “a perverse curiosity” to see what he was like two decades later. He wanted an interview. Tiny, as Burnett calls him, was playing in an East Dallas club called Confetti, and Burnett went. He walked down the hallway — security nonexistent — found Tiny between sets and asked for an interview. They ended up meeting at Tiny’s hotel at 3 a.m. By the time they were done talking, Burnett had become his manager and producer, roles which he kept until Tiny died in 1996.
At a recording session before his death, Tiny heard a song Burnett had written. He demanded to record it. “It’s my comeback hit single,” Tiny said. The song, “Fourteen,” became the 14th track of the album, the last song of the last record Tiny ever made.
That number, 14, has popped up so much throughout Burnett’s life that it’s what he named his record store, 14 Records, now on its third iteration on Garland Road near White Rock Lake. While many cities have one or no record stores, East Dallas has two, the other being Good Records, separated by a matter of steps.
Burnett’s love of music began the first time he heard it, which was as a child, listening to what his parents played — Andy Williams, Dean Martin, country.
He went to Skyline High School, the arts magnet at the time, and got his first job in the industry at age 15, at Oak Cliff’s Hit Records. The owner had seen Burnett in action: His knowledge of music was more comprehensive than most adults, and when he made recommendations to strangers, they bought the albums. He was a natural salesman. Within a week of starting the job, Burnett had a key to the store and was running it on his own.
“For a teenager in the ’70s, in the glory days of rock, you might as well have given me the keys to a new Camaro,” Burnett says. “I couldn’t have been happier.”
In all, he says he’s probably worked at 15 record stores in the area, including Peaches Records and Sound Warehouse.
The first record store he owned was one that he bought in the 1980s from a man in Denton. It was called Saved Sounds, and it only sold Christian music. When Burnett acquired it, he changed the name to 14 Records.
That location remained until 1991. Staying in Denton would have meant going out of business. Just in time, Burnett found an available retail space near Blue Goose on Greenville Avenue. It was open for four years, brought down by the rising popularity of CDs and Burnett’s realization he’d have to transform 14 Records into a used record store.
“I laid down my sword and just shut down because I didn’t want to be like everybody else,” he says. “It was a hard decision to make, but I don’t regret it.”
Between closing the Greenville Avenue store and the “late-life crisis” in 2017 that resulted in the opening of the existing 14 Records, Burnett stayed busy by forming a band, The Volares. (Plymouth made a “very mediocre” model called the Volare. Burnett had two, both 1978 models, for seven years each. That’s 14 years total.) One member, Paul Averitt, worked with Burnett at the Denton record store, and he’s now at the Garland Road location. Their first album, recorded in England, like all of Burnett’s favorite albums, was released in 1998.
“The British records made me want to play guitar and make a record, so I needed to honor England,” Burnett says. “And it made it a lot harder and longer and expensive, but it had to be done.”
He also managed The Eight Track Museum in Dallas for five years.
The “shoe box” that is the Garland Road store is half the size of the bygone Greenville Avenue 14 Records and one-fifth the size of The Eight Track Museum. It also comes with a rent that’s twice as high as the last location.
“Welcome to the 21st century,” Burnett says.
About 5,000 records are arranged by genre, alphabetically by artist and chronologically by the release date. The most valuable albums are for looking, not for touching, and are placed high on the walls accordingly. A sealed, first-edition of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, with promotional drill and inserts, is available for $4,000. Those kinds of records don’t sell more than a handful of times per year, but they show customers what kind of store 14 Records is and what kind of person runs it.
High Notes
Bucks Burnett’s inspiration for naming his band The Volares came in a dream. He was watching a movie at the theater, and at the end of the credits appeared the words, in bold, white letters, “The Volares.”
It was 1975. “Killer Queen” had been on the radio for a matter of weeks. Queen put on a concert at McFarlin Auditorium, and the show didn’t sell out. But Burnett was in the audience, and he spent 15 minutes with Freddie Mercury.
Burnett still keeps in touch with Pete Townshend. In fact, he says he has over 500 emails from The Who’s lead singer. In one of their more recent conversations, Burnett says he asked Townshend to stop putting barcodes on his album covers. Townshend said no.
One of Burnett’s favorite albums is The Velvet Underground & Nico. It’s a white album with a banana, designed by Andy Warhol. The banana is peelable, like a sticker, and it reveals the same fruit shape, but printed in pink. Warhol’s name is written on the cover, but The Velvet Underground isn’t.
Bucks Burnett wore this custom-made Led Zeppelin suit, covered in the cover art from the Houses of the Holy album, to a 2007 concert. Jimmy Page signed it in 2013. Photo courtesy of Bucks Burnett.
One special record, part of Burnett’s personal collection, isn’t on display — a first-edition, No. 18 British copy of the Beatles’ White Album, which he purchased from a company based 40 miles from Liverpool that specializes in Beatles memorabilia.
Burnett’s favorite part of owning a record store is buying albums, the process of rummaging through a box of music to find the gems.
But not all of his inventory are from purchases. He says he receives deliveries from the Easter Bunny. Every weekend, the Bunny, who has a key to the store, brings a gift basket full of painted eggs and records. Burnett says he’s met the Bunny once, backstage at a concert in Greenwich Village in New York City years ago.
“I said, ‘Dude, you need to put out a record,’” Burnett says. “He said, ‘I’ve got eggs to boil. And then I got to dip them all in paint.’”
Business has slowed since the pandemic, but Burnett says he hasn’t seen sales drop because of streaming. Actually, technology generated the opposite effect. Streaming exposed Generation Z to a variety of genres and artists. They visit the store, hunting for their favorites, telling Burnett they just want great music. For good music, Burnett says, head next door.
The markup rate is determined by rarity and condition, but customers can rest assured that Burnett tests every album for quality — no scratches.
New wave and jazz have been selling the most frequently, with the former being hard to find because they sold less than classic rock.
The store isn’t open during typical business hours. Burnett says he doesn’t want his work to feel like a real job.The pandemic made business patterns at 14 Records unpredictable, Burnett says. Now, he sells most of his records between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.
“I just suit up and show up,” he says.
But the best bet to find him around is 2 p.m. until midnight Wednesday-Sunday. He’ll probably be wearing one of his many colorful shirts that he keeps at the store.
“You know how you achieve excellence? By doing 99 things that only one person will notice,” Burnett says. “That’s what I do at my store.”
