Tower Records was founded by Russ Solomon in 1960, here in the Sacramento (California) area. The store expanded all over the world, ang became very glitzy and commercial - but the Sacramento stores retained their funky quality that had made the chain so popular in the first place. The firm went bankrupt in 2006, and Solomon later founder a one-store chain, R5 Records - attempting to recapture the magic of the early Tower stores. So far, R5 hasn't been a big success, but it's still going.
I wonder what it will take to capture the atmosphere of the record stores of yore.

-Joe-