After 50 years of love and loss, an Atlanta record store is ready to celebrate
On a humid Saturday in mid-July, eccentric Atlanta neighborhood Little Five Points is in peak form.
Streets are blocked off to cars. A giant screen off the intersection of Euclid and Moreland Avenue plays a NASCAR race. To the left, an aerialist sets up a trapeze. To the right, vendors — including a gelato truck and someone promoting a fire show — outline a sinuous walkway.
Around the corner, inside an unassuming small store many music fans consider to be its own spectacle, dozens of customers dig through the panoply of inventory.
“That’s one of the greatest albums of all time,” manager Sean Bourne says to a patron purchasing Curtis Mayfield’s 1972 “Super Fly” soundtrack.
As one of Atlanta’s oldest record stores, Wax ‘n’ Facts has dazzled entrants with a mesmerizing milieu and musical depth. On Sunday, over a year after the death of its co-founder Harry DeMille, the shop’s legacy will be celebrated in concert and conversation at a Variety Playhouse event.
And just steps away, Criminal Records will mark its 35th anniversary next month, cementing Little Five Points’ status as a must-stop area for Atlanta vinyl lovers.
History in the making
Wax ‘n’ Facts opened its doors on June 6, 1976, at 432 Moreland Ave., where it’s remained. Danny Beard and DeMille, the store’s co-founders, saw the vacant 2,000-square-foot spot near their home on Seminole Avenue and figured they’d take it. After seeing the success of several Athens record stores, Beard wanted to open his own.
He had recently graduated from the University of Georgia and served as a host on now-defunct Decatur radio station WQAK.
DeMille worked at 12th Gate, a former hangout where Beard would see jam-rock acts like Hampton Grease Band perform. The pair met through another pioneering Atlanta band, the Fans, with whom DeMille lived.
And the rent on the Moreland space? $110 per month.
“I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I guess I had an instinct for doing the right thing,” Beard, 72, said. “With Harry, we worked together to make sure that we didn’t buy crummy records, and that has been beneficial.”
DeMille formed the store’s name (“wax” for records and “facts” for books). The “facts” facet of the store was short-lived, but the “wax” was eternal.
Through word-of-mouth alone, the store quickly became known for its used records across all genres, so much so that a second location, titled Wax Junior Facts, opened in Athens in 1982 (it closed two years later).
“People were waiting for a place like us,” said Beard, a longtime music lover and collector. “We started with 15 boxes of records. Then people kept bringing stuff in.”
Beard didn’t have any tangible goal when opening the store. He simply wanted to sell affordable, quality records. The Decatur resident also didn’t know his idea would work, especially in Little Five Points.
“It was not as welcoming as it is now,” he said.
Or, as Bourne, who has worked at the store since 1978, put it, “Imagine if 95% of the stores that are there now are not there.”
Central to the site’s word-of-mouth strategy was the rise of new wave, a pop-punk subgenre of music that emerged in the late 1970s.
According to Bourne, the musical style went “hand-in-hand” with the store’s early success, yielding the addition of newer records to its collection. Shortly after, Wax ‘n’ Facts became a hub for artists, including André 3000 and the Indigo Girls, who wanted to sell and promote their work, while discovering loads of others.
Today, its vast collection — from the vocal recordings of Tony Bennett and Judy Garland to the broader genres of rock and rap — has inspired many, including DJ Silver Knight.
As a teen in the 1990s, the Atlanta radio host and producer, who now owns record store Vinyl Fiends in Ponce City Market, would scour the store’s supply to prepare for weekend DJ gigs.
“If I was looking for something specific, I knew that there was a great chance I would find it there, or they could possibly find it for me,” said Knight, now 47. “It kind of became a safe space as an early DJ to talk and find music.”
Forming that community of music lovers early on was critical to the store’s future, said Bourne.
“We just wouldn’t have survived without a vibrant group of people that wanted to come and look for new things,” he added
Wax ‘n’ Facts’ new wave
Anne Richmond Boston can’t remember the exact moment she entered Wax ‘n’ Facts’ for the first time, but she remembers how she felt. As a singer for the 1970s Atlanta-based new wave band the Swimming Pool Q’s, Boston described the store as a “vital part” of the city’s music scene.
“They were one of the few independent record stores at the time, and they had a really eclectic collection of music,” Boston said. “Plus, it was really a hip place to be. It was a welcoming place for musicians to buy and sell stuff.”
In fact, the Swimming Pool Q’s were among the bands signed to Beard’s label, DB Records. Formed in 1978, the label released the B-52s' debut single “Rock Lobster” (the quirky Athens rock outfit later signed with Warner Records).
As with the store, Beard didn’t really have much of a vision for the label. He only wanted to release great music.
“I’m a good listener,” he noted.
Although DB Records disbanded in 1994, Beard revived it last year. In November, the label released Anne Richmond Boston’s second solo album “I Should Be Happy,” which was recorded 30 years earlier.
In the label’s new era, Beard plans to reissue more music from the Swimming Pool Q’s and the Fans: “It’s just to save some things that deserve to be saved.”
For Boston, the release was a creative reawakening, prompting her to form a five-piece band and book gigs, something she hadn’t done in three decades. She’ll perform, along with All the Saints and Pylon Reenactment Society, at Sunday night’s show.
“It’s invigorating,” the Colbert resident said. “I love to sing, and I love musicians. It’s really, I think, the thing that I love to do the most and have not done in so long.”
Amid Wax ‘n’ Facts’ lush history, a few challenges emerged. With the evolution of music streaming in the late 1990s, Beard said the store was “trying to keep our head above water,” cutting record purchasing and staff (the store currently employs about five people).
Decades later, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the store to reduce its hours.
But its biggest hurdle arrived just a few years ago. Following a cancer diagnosis, DeMille stopped working at the store for over a year. He died last April at 74.
“He’s greatly missed,” Beard said. “He had his customers that would come to see him, so that’s not really happening anymore, but (things at the store) are going well. It’s just different, you know. He was a really good guy. It’s hard to talk about.”
Chad Radford, a music journalist and author of “Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History,” described DeMille as an “encyclopedia of music history.”
“Every time you would go in there, he would drop some knowledge on you or ask you, ‘Do you know about this record?’” Radford said. “I would go in there, and he would say, ‘Hey, this record came in. It seems like it’s up your alley. Do you want this?’ And I’m like ‘Yes, please.’ He was always right.”
A lasting legacy
After an initial decline, vinyl records have experienced steady growth for nearly 20 years, with 2025 sales reaching over $1 billion, according to an RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) report. The hunger for vinyl is clearly seen in Atlanta, said Radford, who noted that the city is known for its variety of stores.
“When you go to the record store, you kind of get a pretty unique view of a city’s history and its cultural presence … If you go to Wax ‘n’ Facts, these are the masters, the elder statesmen of the music scene, and I mean that with total respect,” said Radford.
Criminal Records turns 35
Though Wax ‘n’ Facts was one of the first record shops to open in the area, two others have opened within a block: Moods Music and Criminal Records.
The latter is celebrating its 35th year with a party on Aug. 15. Owner Eric Levin, hailing from Daytona Beach, Florida, opened up his record store in a 400-square-foot former floral shop next to Variety Playhouse (later moving to its current location on Euclid Ave.), using mostly his own record collection.
Levin didn’t view Wax ‘n’ Facts as competition. He had long admired the store and Beard, having collected releases from DB Records while in Florida. He felt like he could do something different, focusing more on hip-hop, punk and underground music. Levin also concentrated on CDs, comic books and weird magazines.
“I just didn’t have that ‘Ooh, you’re opening up against Wax ‘n’ Facts,’” Levin said. “Not against. You should park in Little Five Points and come see us both. And it’s been like that for 35 years.”
As Wax ‘n’ Facts celebrates its own milestone, Bourne reflects on the influence that all record stores — young and old — wield.
“There’s a rich history of music in this wonderful world we live in, and we’re just happy to be a part of it, even if it’s just the part that says, ‘You’re looking for this? I think we have it over here.’
AJC reporter Savannah Sicurella contributed to this report.
IF YOU GO
Wax ‘n’ Facts 50th Anniversary Celebration
Sunday. 6:30 p.m. $34. Variety Playhouse. 1099 Euclid Ave., Atlanta. 404-524-7354. variety-playhouse.com.