Irma Gutierrez grew up in the Westside record shop her parents opened in 1966. She loves helping customers find music tied to memories.
on San Antonio’s West Side when I was just a kid. One of my earliest memories was of hiding behind the counter and reaching underneath to grab customers’ feet, startling them, and getting scolded by my mother. I got such a kick out of it.Musicians my father worked with — like Valerio Longoria, and Santiago and Flaco Jimenez — would come by all the time to hang out in the shop and record in my dad’s studio.
Now that I help run the store, I see how much work it is and I’m amazed by how my parents did it back when my seven siblings and I were young. Now I recognize the saying that behind every great man is a strong woman. My father was successful in music, writing and producing so many songs for big names in conjunto and Tejano, even winning several Tejano Music Awards and being inducted into the Tejano Music Hall of Fame.
The distributors started shutting down, but I still source records any way I can. Sometimes that means tracking down musicians and reaching out on Facebook. And I listen to every vinyl record, CD, and cassette we sell to make sure it’s in good condition. After all these years, I have an encyclopedic knowledge of music and can usually help customers find what they’re looking for, even if singing a line from a song or humming a melody is all the information they can give me.