Jerry Weber, founder of Jerry's Records in Pittsburgh, dies

Jerry Weber, the beloved Pittsburgh purveyor of vinyl, has died.

Weber owned Jerry’s Records on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill — a haven for vinylheads and a kingdom of records.

“We are devastated to hear of Jerry’s passing,” the record store wrote Saturday on Facebook. “Our beloved founder and Pittsburgh’s vinyl savior, Jerry instilled a profound love of music in all of us. His generosity and kindness knew no bounds. He always had your back. The impact he made will never be forgotten. We’ll miss you Jerry.”

He was 73 and lived in Swissvale. A cause of death is not yet known.

Throughout the day, tributes poured in on social media. Customers remembered their favorite record purchase, conversations with Weber about music and hours of combing through the store’s thousands of records.

“Jerry was such a special guy,” Joey Spehar, host of the morning mix on WYEP 91.3 FM, wrote on Twitter.” I will miss his stories and his mischievous personality (and the swigs of crown out of a soaking wet purple velvet bag pulled from a cooler on a hot summer night at the WYEP summer music fest).”

When Weber retired from the store in 2017, he told the Tribune-Review that — on top of his store stock —he had another 450,000 albums in a warehouse and 20,000 in his personal collection. He told the Trib that his customers have included Robert Plant (“he was friendly and nice and signed autographs for people”); Ben Folds, who always seemed to be trailed by female fans; jazz musician Paul Winter, who bought one of his own albums; and DJ Jazzy Jeff, who spent an entire day in the store with six colleagues looking for albums to sample from collections that didn’t require royalties paid. The late Mac Miller, who graduated from Allderdice High School, named a song “Jerry’s Record Store.”

So sad to hear the news about Jerry Weber. There were a couple of yrs when I went to Jerry's Records just about every Saturday, and Jerry was such a gentle ruler of his vinyl kingdom. So many fond memories, and so many records that will always make me think of him.

— Mike Sauter (@mike913) January 29, 2022

Weber owned various iterations of Jerry’s Records for 40 years before selling it to employee Chris Grauzer.

The music he sold covered all genres, from rock to folk, from ethnic to jazz, from classical to new wave and punk and bluegrass.

“It gave me a living and it fed my kids and feeds my grandkids right now,” Weber told the Tribune-Review in 2017. “But I didn’t get rich because I have too many records. Kids will come and ask how many records are here and say ‘You must be rich.’ No. If I had 50,000 albums and $400,000 I still wouldn’t be rich, but I’d be better off than I am.”

Related:

• Jerry Weber is retiring, but Jerry's Records will go on
• Former Jerry's Records owner now selling vinyl from Swissvale spot

Even after he retired, Weber peddled records from his warehouse in Swissvale, Vinyl-Man’s Clubhouse. The space is a former car dealership and light fixture store.

“I love music, but I have so much that I want to find homes for all of these records,” he said in March. “They aren’t playing sitting in this warehouse. Music connects everybody.”

Weber entered the record business in 1978 as part-owner of Record Graveyard, maintaining his day job delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service. He opened his own store and, in 1985, quit the post office to sell records full-time. For many years, the store was located on Forbes Avenue in Oakland. The Squirrel Hill location opened in 1993.

“I like people who like music,” Weber said in the 2017 Trib article. “If people come in here and buy 20 records, I give them at least two for free, just because I can. What am I going to do? I got all these records.”