Barry Graham sat on the floor of a windowless storage room, deep inside the maze of white hallways of WHRO.
The radio host leaned toward a low shelf, scanning the tightly packed vinyl records, his eyes darting from one jazz luminary to the next.
“We kept this one?” he asked, pulling one out and looking up at Jae Sinnett, a fellow WHRO radio producer.
Nearly two years ago, WHRO in Norfolk gave away most of its vinyl collection of 50,000 to 60,000 albums to clear space. But it kept some gems. It still houses over 2,500 vinyl jazz albums that the longtime hosts couldn’t bear to part with, artifacts that tell the station’s history and of American music.
Last week, Graham and Sinnett perused the treasure trove and hope to one day share it with listeners.
“Yeah, this one. Why’d we keep it?” Graham asked, lifting the album toward Sinnett who bent over to take a look.
The album, “More Stuff” by Stuff, features the band collaborating with disco legend Van McCoy — known for his 1975 dance hit “The Hustle” — on tracks such as “Honey Coral Rock” and “Sometimes Bubba Gets Down.”