John Carroll doesn’t play a musical instrument, but as an avid collector of recorded music who’s been producing music mixes on cassette and CDs for more than 50 years, he certainly can be called a music man.
“To me, it’s an inner spiritual connection to everybody. It’s always a way to reach somebody else,” Carroll said.
Carroll, 77, estimates his collection of LPs, including 78 RPM records, and CDs and cassettes currently comprises 50,000 recordings covering virtually every musical genre.
Carroll, a 48-year resident of Mineola who is a member of the board of directors of the Irish American Society of Nassau, Suffolk and Queens, his great passion has been creating thematic and eclectic mixes of all his recordings for special occasions and special friends since he was in his 20s.
“I feel good about that. Rarely do I ask anybody what they think,” he said.
But ask him about what he thinks of a particular composer or musical composition, and it is easy to discern that his knowledge correlates directly to the number of recordings he owns. A tour of his home near the Irish American Society headquarters in Mineola reveals he’s not exaggerating about the number of LPs and other recordings he’s collected over the years.
They fill shelves and boxes in his basement, where there’s just room enough to move between his locker full of 78s. And it’s all categorized, from swing era to jazz and classical and rock records, a category where he said he’s “catching up.”
“I have Bing Crosby beyond Crosby,” he said in a remark that summarizes his inordinate focus in some categories, including Irish music.
For all the numbers, his collecting has not been haphazard. His Crosby collection includes a recording of an early radio show where Crosby showcased the legendary Irish tenor John McCormack
It’s evidence of a lifetime spent collecting with an intention and a passion – and often opportunistically. He said he picked up much of his collection at Tower Records and other outlets that went bust as online sales of recorded music effectively killed the retail outlets’ business.
“I got them for $1,” he said, laughing about the bargains.
“I think he’s a hoarder of records,” his wife, Patricia, said.
They maintain a territorial dividing line in their basement. But what may seem like hoarding to some is the culmination of a lifetime of finding meaning in the music and using it to communicate to others.
“It was one of the ways to communicate in my house with my father,” he recalled.
He described his father as a quiet, hard-working man who would read the Sunday paper on the porch of the house where Carroll grew up in Richmond Hill, Queens. He remembers how his father would tap his foot in time to records he would play on the family wind-up victrola. From a young age, Carroll recalls asking for records for Christmas and as he received those presents, he began to collect musical recordings in a serious way.
He started making mixes of music from his collection of 78s when cassettes became the cutting edge of recording technology, making thematic mixes of popular vintage tunes.
“It’s stuff that was always beautiful but rarely ever heard,” he said.
Carroll spent four years in the U.S. Air Force deciphering coded messages intercepted from Red China between 1956 and 1960.
After being discharged, he got into the banking business, eventually becoming an officer at Franklin Bank in lower Manhattan – not far from where composer Charles Ives worked at an insurance company. He also worked in accounting for Grumman Corp. Medical problems prompted him to change careers and he’s also worked as a substance abuse counselor.
In his retirement, he’s had plenty of time to focus on music. He makes mixes for events at the Irish American Society, and estimates he’s compiled at least 100 CD mixes of Irish tunes. Every Monday, he oversees a gathering of the Mineola Leisure Club at the Irish American Society headquarters, and produces mixes for that.
“That’s where I promote Morton Gould and Charles Ives,” Carroll said.
Gould and Ives and two of his favorite composers, but from Bach to Count Basie and the Beatles, there are few composers Carroll doesn’t seem to like.
Sometimes people ask him for a mix, but most of the 1,000 mixes he’s produced over the years are inspired by a friend taking a trip or feeling down or struck with illness. In one instance, he made a mix for his daughter-in-law’s mother when she was in Winthrop-University Hospital for treatment of an aneurysm. The CD comprised her family’s favorite music and he said it helped during her recovery.
For Carroll, music is a kind of sanctuary, a contemplative retreat from the discordant reality in his life, and he said he believes it works that way for other people as well.
“It is a peaceful place to go. It makes you reflect on where you are and where you’re heading,” he said.
