- I think vinyl has made a resurgence because, while you can go listen to an MP3, or you can go listen to Spotify, there's something about having a physical copy of a record.

That's just, it's just so much more fun.

I'm Amy Presley, I'm the program director for Amarillo College's FM90.

I started here as a student back in the late '90s.

I think I ended up graduating in the early 2000s, about 2002.

I left, worked commercial radio for about 15 years, and then I came back.

And now I'm teaching radio classes, and I'm the PD for FM90.

FM90, the biggest thing is that we are 100,000 watt.

So we are are kind of a big deal.

We're kind of a unicorn a little bit.

And so our students, they really take to that.

They take this very seriously.

They understand that we are FCC regulated, that there are laws that we have to abide by.

And I think that's the thing that impresses me the most.

They come in, they take this as a job.

They take it very seriously, yet they still have fun and bring their personality to it.

- I actually got on here before I even started in Radio 1.

And, it didn't take long to fall in love.

- Yeah.

- Radio is alive and kicking.

And people always talk about how radio's dying, it's a dying industry.

This is the biggest resurgence of radio classes in several years.

I think it's just as popular as it's ever been.

Students are listening to music in a different way, but radio's still free.

It's local.

What we're finding is that people actually like hearing a personality on the air.

It feels like you're talking to a friend, and they're giving you information.

And so, a younger generation is starting to figure out that radio is actually pretty cool.

Vinylthon is a day that we spend playing vinyl.

That's essentially what we're going to do.

It's a national campaign to bring awareness to record stores.

To talk about vinyl, its importance, its history.

And why it's still important today.

So, we're going to do that on April 13th.

It's in coordination with Record Store Day.

So while Record Store Day is going on, we'll be playing all songs from records.

This year for Vinylthon we have someone supporting us, which is really nice.

We asked Spinning Jenny's House of Music in Shamrock, about sponsoring us this year.

And she immediately jumped on board.

She has been around for only a couple of years, there in Shamrock.

- I was doing laundry one day, and I was just sitting there thinking, this kind of sucks.

I want to go do something else.

And I love music, and I started racking my brains, so it just kind of came to me, actually while I was doing laundry.

My name is Jenny Morgan, and my business is Spinning Jenny's House of Music.

I got started in vinyl actually from my mom.

She was a huge, and is a huge, music lover.

And she helps here at the store.

I remember first grade, my first album that I could not wait to go buy, was KC and the Sunshine Band.

- Do you have an all-time favorite band?

Is that even possible?

- I'm so glad you asked me that.

(laughs) I love Pearl Jam.

I don't want to start crying, I don't want to get like super into why I love them.

Just some of the lyrics really touch home for me.

And they rock.

I've seen them I think seven times?

Yeah.

I just love them.

- I actually have the original pressing of this at home.

- Nice - I worked at a record store when I was in college.

And I love this album so much.

Eddie Vedder, ah.

But it's something, there's something really dark about this album that I love.

- It is kind of a dark album.

And it's harder, like a little bit more hardcore, I think, than a lot of their stuff.

Especially the stuff they put out recently.

A lot of those songs, most people have never heard so it's kind of your own little secret.

- I agree, I agree.

And then you find the people that are like that's my favorite album.

And it's like, I know you.

- Oh!

- Oh!

I see you.

(laughter) - I'm a longtime Prince fan, very sad that he's gone.

But they are reissuing his records.

And I was just going to kind of show you what they're doing with these.

Here's the Prince album.

- I love it.

- Here's the inside, with the words which is another bonus that you get with vinyl.

And this beautiful purple vinyl.

- I love it.

- Yes, and it sounds amazing.

(upbeat jazz music) - I think the hard thing about owning a record store would be finding what your clientele is looking for, especially in a small town like Shamrock.

You're going to get people off of I-40, but you're also going to have locals.

And they're going to have specific things that they're looking for.

- It seems like everyone that comes in is always in a good mood, and we have that bond that we both love music.

We've had people come in from China, all over Europe.

A couple from Russia, off the coast of Africa.

All over the United States.

It's super interesting.

I tried to create an atmosphere just kind of full of music.

We have tons of posters in here.

And tons of vinyl.

We do sell record players and turntables and speakers.

I just got in a vintage rotary dial phone and a small cassette recorder that I'm selling now.

'Cause kids, they have no idea what that is.

- For people who listen on Vinylthon Day, what do you want them to get out of it?

- I want them to feel emotion.

Get excited about it.

I want them to kind of relive what it was like listening as a child.

That day is a lot of memories, it's people just loving the music that we play.

We play a little bit of everything.

So, this year we're planning on doing three hours of regular type music, with some oldies thrown in, different things.

And then, from noon until two we're going to do the first two hours of Body and Soul on vinyl.

Not really anything is off limits, per se.

As long as it's not swearing, or something like that.

But anything else, I can kind of, we can fit it on somewhere.

So you might hear the Beatles next to the Smashing Pumpkins.

But it somehow works because it's all on records.

- Which one do you want?

- I want "Mother's Talk," track number four side one.

- Brian and I, we work together to really make it sound cohesive, and flow from one element to the next.

So, we try to not make it so jarring.

Where Nine Inch Nails is going to come out of Johnny Cash.

But, it might.

A college radio station is so much more dynamic.

Every six months, you have 40 new students.

Their nervousness brings an excitement back to radio.

It makes you understand, when you listen to radio, it's not as easy as the commercial guys make it seem.

But when you hear students do it, you can kind of hear the terror in their voice.

But then, over time, they just start growing and getting better.

One of the things that I love about Vinylthon, is it shows students, you know- Automation's a great thing.

Technology is a great thing.

But they get very reliant on it.

Vinylthon kind of shows them the difficulties they used to have on the radio.

Because every two and a half, three minutes they're putting on another record.

Plus, they're having to read their liners and do the rest of their job.

It makes them see, wow, we've got it really easy.

But also, I want to know how to up my game a little bit.

So, usually after Vinylthon, we see a big resurgence of people turning the automation completely off, and manually doing everything themselves.

Man, this was is fun.

Me and 45s go way back.

- [Camerawoman] Yeah?

- Yeah.

Learned to read off of the labels.

No stinking-- - [Camerawoman] Hooked on Phonics?

- Hooked on Phonics, or internet apps that make your kids better readers, no.

Mom said if you want to hear this particular record, you better be able to tell me what it is so you learn to read off record labels.

- A lot of students love collecting vinyl.

It invokes memories for them.

It makes them think of their parents, or their grandparents.

That's part of what Vinylthon does.

We bring students, we tell them to bring their vinyl, bring your records, tell us the story of why you chose this record.

- This is a 45 that my parents owned in the '60s.

And I'm sure my dad bought it when it came out, it's 1956, is when this was cut.

And I used to love playing this record when I was five or six, seven years old.

The decal being off center as you see is what I thought was just really cool about it, and of course the music.

There's nothing like good jazz and blues, so.

- You know, you can collect MP3s but they're all in your phone.

Or they're all on a digital media player.

But there's something about having a collection of music.

That's what I love about it.

I love being able to walk in a room, and all my favorite songs are there.

All my favorite albums, in a physical form.

- What can you tell about somebody from their record collection?

- Oh, Gosh.

(laughs) I try to not be a snob about record collections.

I think record collections are, they're telling in the fact of how they take care of them, I think more than anything.

I don't really judge the music.

Because I think if you were going to go that length, to become a collector of anything, as far as vinyl goes, like, bravo.

(smooth jazz music)