I Found A New Love
Jimmy Holiday
1967, Minit Records
Some records never go away. I first heard this record twenty-five years ago, in London, in Bell Street, on a record stall. You’ll like this, the stall holder said, and he was right. I loved it. He wanted to sell it to me but I was out of money. I was often, those days, out of money. Still am. Somethings, like some records, never go away.
I remember thinking then that it didn’t matter. Sure I loved the record but I’d find it again. No problem. Somewhere in the world, somewhere along the line, our paths would cross.
It took twenty-five years.
For the past two weeks I’ve been in America, visiting family and friends. I’ve also been, when I could, buying records. At the end of the first week in Texas, I wandered into a thrift store and flipped through a pile of 45s. A woman at the counter said, you like them little bitty records? With the big hole? I told her that yes I did, I liked those little bitty records very much. Well we got us a big ol box of em out back, she said.
I spent the next hour picking through them. There wasn’t much that interested me, but I pulled a few things. A couple by Stoney Edwards, O. V. Wright on Backbeat, Foolish Fool by Dee Dee Warwick. I was halfway through the box and thinking about what I might have for lunch. I was thinking about a little place I’d been to years before, with Dan Del Santo, a Cuban place called El Tipati’s. I was wondering if it was still open. I was picturing the mural on the wall, a painting of three goats, two doves and a snake, when all of a sudden I stopped flipping records. I stopped thinking. I stopped, for a moment, breathing. Damn. There it was. I had it. Right there in front of me. I Found A New Love by Jimmy Holiday. Finally. Twenty five years later.