Harry DeMille, used-record impresario, raconteur, dies at 74

“The store has been his life,” said his wife, Alice DeMille. “He loved it. It wasn’t about the money, I can tell you that. He liked turning people on to records.”

Unlike the pop culture stereotype of the too-hip record store clerk who only likes the most obscure bands on the most prestigious vinyl pressings, DeMille was considered to be gracious and fun to hang with as he shared his prodigious musical knowledge of everything from country to punk.

“He and Danny Beard managed to maintain this record store through all the musical tides and trends: Spotify, we hate CDs, we love CDs, we hate vinyl, no, we still love vinyl. They managed to navigate all that,” said Noel Mayeske, a graphic designer and regular Wax ‘N’ Facts customer for decades.

“Wax ‘N’ Facts is part of the soul of our neighborhood. They’re the OGs [original gangsters], the people who were there when it was nothing,” said Kelly Stocks, former president of the Little Five Points Business Association.

Harry DeMille died of cancer Sunday, April 20, in Piedmont Hospital. He was 74.

Credit: AJC

Credit: AJC

DeMille and his friend Danny Beard opened Wax ‘N’ Facts at 432 Moreland Ave., on June 6, 1976. Wax referred to vinyl records, and the facts to books. Although the store still stocks some books, the wax side of the business took over decades ago.

The location had previously been a bicycle repair shop, a bar, and a meat-and-three restaurant.

“The heating and air conditioning unit is connected to the old grease hood line [from the restaurant],” DeMille said in the 2023 book, “Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History,” by Chad Radford.

“When we first turned it on, the place smelled like 100-year-old hamburger grease.”

“There is no other neighborhood in the city, at least that I’m aware of, that has changed like Little Five Points,” DeMille said in the oral history. “It was the pits when we opened the store. It wasn’t dangerous, it was just dead. There was nothing going down. Every fourth or fifth storefront was boarded up. Some of them had been for years.”

That same mid ’70s era in Little Five Points saw the opening of Charis Books feminist bookstore and Sevananda Natural Foods Market, which helped to make the neighborhood the bohemian enclave it is.

“At the time used records were still kind of a novel thing,” said Radford. “There was a bookstore in Decatur that had a box of secondhand records on the floor you could flip through.”

DeMille and Beard rented the store and went to yard sales to build their inventory. In 1987 they bought the building and expanded to the store’s current size.

“The store hasn’t changed much,” Alice DeMille joked. “They probably still have some of the same dust bunnies in there as when they started.”

DeMille was born at Piedmont Hospital on Feb. 13, 1951, to Harry and Janet DeMille. He graduated from Druid Hills High School in 1969 and lived his entire life in Atlanta except for two years when he was a child. He attended Georgia State University but did not earn a degree.

“He liked to say he was in the film business because he would clean the Film Forum at night after the movies were over,” said Alice DeMille, referring to an old Ansley Mall spot that showed foreign and art films.

Before opening Wax ‘N’ Facts, he also lived in a place called 12th Gate in Midtown, sometimes called “a hippie hangout,” running a shop that sold incense, cigarettes and used records in a box.

In 1979, Alice Kelly was a customer who told DeMille he had accidentally undercharged her on a Nils Lofgren double album; after some flirting, they went to dinner that night. They got married seven months later.

Alice DeMille became the Wax ‘N’ Facts accountant for years. “I realized, wait a minute, they haven’t opened a bank statement in four years,” she said.

“He was mellow, he was friendly, he never overreacted to anything,” says James Kelly, who has performed for years as leader of the bar band Slim Chance & the Convicts, and who drank beer with DeMille occasionally at Euclid Avenue Yacht Club.

“He could talk about just anything,” Kelly continued. “People think he just knew a lot about records, but he was quite the avid reader. He knew a lot about literature and history.”

“Harry was very much an Atlanta history buff,” said his wife. “Both his parents and his grandparents were from Atlanta. He had a wealth of knowledge about Atlanta, especially the changes that have taken place during his lifetime.”

He was diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2023, and did not return to work because of complications.

“He had stories about people who came to the store: Burt Reynolds, Cat Power, Jerry Reed,” said Radford. “When these people are gone, their stories are gone. He was the storyteller.”

Survivors include his wife Alice; brothers David and Donald DeMille; and sister Carol Bridges.

Family and friends are planning a celebration of life. Details will be announced later.