SHOP
TALK
Weird Harold’s Records
Time to hit Burlington, Iowa’s pre-eminent, pre-loved record grotto.
NOMINATED BY MOJO reader Todd Schappaugh as a “great store with friendly and knowledgeable staff ”, Weird Harold’s Records has been selling vinyl since 1972. On two floors there’s more than 50,000 used records, roughly 2,000 newly pressed releases and pristine and used CDs, plus cassettes, 8-tracks, 45s and 78s, T-shirts, posters, incense and more. “We have a huge selection of rock, jazz and country records and pretty much every other genre you can think of,” says owner Andrea Fritz, who first worked at the store in 1994 when she was in high school, and bought it from founder Danny Bessine in 2019. “He was still working here until March of 2024 when he very unexpectedly passed away,” she says, adding that he picked the shop’s name from a character from the Fat Albert cartoon series. “We offer a small-town hospitality with a big city inventory,” says Andrea, a soul fan who digs Jonny Lang, Prince and Doyle Bramhall II. “We’re still weird and providing people with the soundtrack to their lives.”