Amarillo: High Fidelity Records

In 2017, fifty thousand vinyl records turned up in a farmhouse basement north of Sunray, Texas. Ray Wilson got a phone call. That phone call became High Fidelity Records Amarillo.

Wilson is a musician. He’s also a former IT company owner. He first sold records from a booth inside the historic Nat Ballroom on Route 66.

Amarillo sits exactly halfway between Albuquerque and Oklahoma City. A century of touring bands stopped here to stretch their legs and play a show before moving on. Wilson wanted to bring that back. He sold his IT company and took a space on SW 6th Avenue in the San Jacinto neighborhood. He named it after the Nick Hornby novel and the John Cusack film.

Halfway Down Route 66

Amarillo was an oasis for touring bands on I-40 and its predecessor, Route 66. The city saw acts of every stripe pass through for a century. Wilson thinks it can again. High Fidelity hosts underground shows alongside its records — a full band in a tight space, the way small venues always ran. The store’s vinyl, CDs, comics, and memorabilia lean toward things that never made it onto streaming. “There’s as much recorded music not digital as there is that is digital,” Wilson says.

Fifty thousand records from a Sunray farmhouse. An IT career turned sideways. A store named after a book about loving music obsessively. High Fidelity landed exactly where it was supposed to.