Ep. 69 Rob Tolleson (New Orleans, Dallas)

2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records

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In the middle of a very long shift, working to get the brand new Dallas, TX store open, Rob Tolleson had no idea why Kevin Cassidy wanted to go out for coffee with him. “I thought I was in trouble” was his first thought. When Cassidy asked if Rob had ever considered working in management, Tolleson told him that he had not for the simple fact that he hadn’t been on the sales floor in years. Cassidy responded that he had seen that Rob could work with everybody in the store, which was the most important component of management, and that the company could get him up to speed on how to handle the nuts and bolts of being a Manager. Thus began the Rob Tolleson’s management career with Tower Records.

Born and raised in New Orleans, at the age of 10 Rob was adopted by the guitarist of a local/national band who had married his mother. From an early age music was a part of Rob’s life. Nonetheless, he had no idea what Tower Records was until one of his mother’s friends brought by a promo of Van Halen’s OU812. The same friend got him an interview with Record Sales Manager, Freddi Szilagi.

In this week’s episode, Rob Tolleson tells us about growing up a fan of Classic Rock, starting out alphabetizing Jazz cassettes, moving to Supervisor, and then receiving. From there Rob became a bit of a fixture on the A team circuit, helping to open brand new stores for Tower Records. He also takes an outsider into some of the inner workings of how Tower navigated the city’s Jazzfest, where Mondays were often $100,000 days, beating the store’s Christmas business.

Rob also remembers, after it all closed down, the TV show “Treme” taking a shot at Tower Records during one of its first season episodes.