Music

Toure is one of Africa’s best known musicians and embodies the sound that served as an essential progenitor of the Blues.

There is a music store for sale in Los Angeles. It has old, sagging shelves stuffed with hundreds of thousands of recordings, from wax cylinders to 8-track tapes to LPs and CDs. The man who has owned the business since 1962 is Murray Gershenz.

"I wasn't earning enough money to support my family, so I decided to get some extra income by putting my record collection up for sale," Gershenz tells NPR's Scott Simon. "I opened the store, built some shelves with the help of a rabbi friend of mine and, little by little, the music took over."

How do you measure the value of an experience — one that promises the thrill of new discoveries; the chance to experience, at least vicariously, foreign cultures, new ideas, unexpected emotions — and, at least for a moment, escape? What's that worth?

Probably more than words can express — whatever experience those questions might conjure for you. For me, they're prompted by the loss of an experience — of going to a record store.

Melody Records, on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., closed on March 9,2012, after 35 years in business.