Russell Solomon photographed in his Sacramento home.
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Russell Solomon was born in Sacramento, California. His father owned a small, but successful, business called Tower Cut Rate Drug Store and from the age of 13, Solomon worked there, absorbing lessons about business.
He had little interest in school with a record of showing up late, then leaving early. He said in a January 2011 interview for the Sacramento Bee, that he “couldn’t get up in the morning” so he’d get there about an hour before lunch and go home soon afterward. Solomon said he “was thrown out of high school,” and did take some classes at Sacramento Junior College. His lack of formal education did not appear to hinder him especially since he learned valuable business lessons from his father. He also spent a lot of time with the photographers who processed film.
In 1941, when only sixteen, he sold used juke box records out of his father’s drug store. When war broke out later that year, his business career was interrupted by military service. When the war was over, he returned to the drug store and his fledgling retail operation.
In 1960 Solomon signed a lease for a 5,000-square-foot storefront in San Francisco. Encouraged by the immediate profitability of the second store, Russell Solomon expanded to Los Angeles in 1970 and added 26 more locations in the next ten years, including the Sapporo, Japan store in April 1980. Over the next decade, Tower Records spread across the globe selling books and videos in addition to music. Although they continued to expand, Tower Records never recovered financially from the interest payments on loans and, in 2006, the company was forced to liquidate and close its doors.
In 2010, he married Patti Drosins after a long friendship.
Russell Solomon’s plan for retirement is to spend more time on his second lifelong passion, photography. As a child he sold his stamp collection to buy a flash attachment. His only real interest in high school seems to have been his stint as yearbook photographer. He spent the six months while he was waiting to report for his military training taking photography classes at the Los Angeles Art Center.
An art collector, Russell Solomon has spent years taking photos of artists he admires as well as other people with interesting faces. Solomon’s wife Patti said “He’s been taking pictures of artists for years, because if he has a camera, whoever is there, he’s going to take a picture. “Soon after his retirement, Michael Stevens and his wife Suzanne Adan, curators of Sacramento City College‘s Gregory Kondos Gallery, noticed a photo Russell Solomon had done of sculptor Gerald Walburg. Stevens said, “Russ had absolutely captured the character of Gerry.”
They soon arranged a showing of his portraits in the City College gallery that turned out to be a great success. After more than 70 years of photography, Russell Solomon has become an artist.
Even though he uses a digital camera these days, he doesn’t manipulate his images. He simply loves taking pictures of faces. In fact, he says, he probably would have been a fashion photographer if he hadn’t gotten involved in selling records first. Bio from wikipedia.org/
We asked Russ a few questions:
What are the 3 important things you would include in your things-still-to-do list? To get up in the morning! To be a better photographer.
What is the one thing that you love the most about yourself? My sense of humor.
What moves you and or touches you about your community? I love the art community, they’re just more fun to be around.
What are you most proud of? Lasting as long as I’ve lasted.
What gets you up in the morning? Looking forward to breakfast. I like simple stuff like cereal and fruit.
If you have a completely free day what would you CHOOSE to do with it? Everyday I have a completely free day! I do as little as possible, I like it that way.
What are you most passionate about? A liberal frame of mind. Basic freedom, liberty and a liberal outlook in life. I’m passionate about that more than anything.
Do you have a childhood memory when you knew the essence of who you’d grow up to be? As a child I never could think forward to what I’d do. It just came. I take one step in front of another.
Are you surprised because your career is a happy accident or are you delighted because it’s what you always wanted? I’m surprised because it’s a happy accident.
“Tower Records is like a temple to me. I’ll stay there for hours…” Billy Bob Thornton
