Pierre Robert’s Entire Record Collection Will Be for Sale for One Day Only

Left: Vinyl Chickie owner Lisa Schaffer, who has come into possession of the entire record collection of the late WMMR DJ Pierre Robert (photo courtesy Lisa Schaffer) | Right: Pierre Robert in his WMMR studio in 2021 (photo by Linette & Kyle Kielinski)

Lisa Schaffer, longtime Philly concert photographer (among her work, she shot Taylor Swift for Philly Mag back in 2023) and, more recently, owner of the Best of Philly-winning record shop Vinyl Chickie in Glenside, has come into possession of the entire record collection of Pierre Robert, who died in October. And this morning, on Preston and Steve, she made an announcement: for one day only, she will offer the collection for sale to the general public. Here, she explains how all of this happened and what to expect.

Lisa, how did you come to own Pierre Robert’s record collection?
I’ve been friends with all of the Hooters for decades now, and Hooters drummer David Uosikkinen is married to Dallyn Pavey Uosikkinen, who has been helping the estate. They were all at my grand opening last May. In December, Dallyn called me and asked me if I wanted to come to Pierre’s house in Gladwyne to see if I might be interested in the collection. You don’t sleep on phone call like that. I said yes, made an offer, and once the estate approved my offer, David carried the collection out to my car. That was the first week in December.

Ah, so this was just over a month since Pierre passed away, and there you are in his house. I can only imagine how that might have felt.
It was so sad. I was very emotional. There were just stacks of memorabilia everywhere. There were all these photos of Pierre with other people. It was a lot to take in. Once I got the records home, I sat with them for a bit. And then on December 8th, the anniversary of John Lennon’s assassination, I listened to Pierre’s John Lennon collection and mourned the loss of Pierre and John Lennon. I cried so much.

David Uosikkinen and Dallyn Pavey Uosikkinen after loading the entire Pierre Robert record collection into Lisa Schaffer’s car in December (photo provided)

Tell me more about the collection itself.
There are 400 records and about 200 CDs. I don’t think Pierre really listened to records. He was primarily a CD person. So most of the records are in pristine, pristine condition, and almost all of them are promo records that are distributed to DJs, things you wouldn’t have been able to buy new in a store. There’s everything from Grateful Dead to Soundgarden to Collective Soul to Prince. Some of it is signed by the artist.

I imagine you can mark these up quite a bit since they were Pierre’s.
I’m not doing that. I am selling them for what they are valued at. Definitely not gouging anybody. Pierre would hate that. I priced them the way I price all of my records. Some are worth $10, so I will sell them for $10. There are a lot of rare bootlegs, which tend to be worth more, some as high as $150.

So can I drive up to Vinyl Chickie right now and buy them?
Nope. This will all happen on April 18th.

Ah. Record Store Day.
Yep. But guess what? You’re not allowed to participate in Record Store Day unless you’ve been open for a year, and I fall one month short of that. So I am going to do something even bigger than Record Store Day. And I will never participate in Record Store Day, based on the way they exclude new, small businesses.

Right. It’s kind of odd. Like, you would think they would want the new record stores to help them out and encourage the vinyl trend without which Record Store Day wouldn’t exist.
Don’t get me started.

OK, so here’s the big question: Your store is tiny. How are you possibly going to host this event? Pierre Robert had a ton of fans, as you know.
As always, only six people will be allowed in the store at a time. I’m going to have DJs spinning live. I anticipate that there will be a huge line of people outside when I open the doors at 10 a.m., so I am going to have to figure out a food truck or getting donuts or something like that. I’m also going to be doing a silent auction, including for a very special copy of Purple Rain with a hype sticker on it. And then I’ll be giving some portion of the money from the silent auctions back to the estate and they are going to donate it to a charity favored by Pierre. That’s what they wanted to do, so that’s how we’re doing it.

So you opened Vinyl Chickie last May, and we gave you the Best of Philly award in August for Best Record Shop. I know owning a small business is hard. What has your experience been?
It’s the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I’ve been a photographer for decades and I worked at Hideaway Music in Chestnut Hill for years and really learned and fell in love with the business. The opportunity to open Vinyl Chickie came up almost accidentally after a conversation with a total stranger, and I decided this was the right thing to do. So I built a record store. And now, less than a year later, I’m going to be selling Pierre Robert’s entire record collection to his fans. I literally cried the whole way home from the WMMR studio this morning. And I’m going to start crying now.