Local music: Secret Stash Records brings rare albums to collectors worldwide

On a recent Monday night, a dozen male music geeks crowded into an Uptown office for a three-hour volunteer work shift. Their mission: Hand-package 1,000 vinyl copies of a record that came out 41 years ago and was largely forgotten.

Welcome to the cult of Secret Stash Records.

The two-year-old Minneapolis label finds long-out-of-print albums that it reissues to record nerds around the globe. Its releases have ranged from Peruvian funk to Ghanaian R&B to '70s porn-movie soundtracks. The company's latest comes from a Georgia soul singer picked by James Brown's old label to replace him in 1971 -- Mickey Murray, who is coming out of retirement to perform Saturday at the Cedar Cultural Center.

Murray's album, "People Are Together," was the raison d'être for the Monday night assembly line. Plied with cans of Surly beer and their own hand-numbered copy of the record, the volunteers treated the work more like a living-room party than a questionable case of free manual labor.

"It's fun," said David Applegate, 42, who spins rare vinyl at the King and I. "We're hanging out with like-minded people listening to good music, contributing to something we all believe in."

Each record sleeve was carefully inspected for defects, hand-numbered and nimbly placed into a plastic-wrap bag. Some were packed with a limited-edition 7-inch bonus record and a special wax seal. Each set also came with specially coded download cards -- always placed face up in the plastic wrap, so diehard collectors could read the code without breaking the seal.

"If you're going to spend a little extra for a special-edition record, the least we can do is spend a little extra time making sure it's of high quality," said Secret Stash co-founder Eric Foss, 26.

The new Murray reissue is an oddity for Secret Stash in that the artist is still alive and resides stateside. Reached by phone in Macon, Ga., Murray said he was taking a wait-and-see attitude toward his young, new suitors. "I didn't make any money off the record in the first place, so I'm leery of everybody in the business," Murray rightfully huffed. "These guys seem to be going about it the right way. Anything I make off it now that might make life a little better is certainly welcome."

Foss pledged to pay Murray his songwriting royalties from the reissues, plus the singer will get an extra cut from each copy sold at the Cedar show.

While plans are in the works for reissues featuring local artists, Foss believes Secret Stash already has a connection to the Twin Cities beyond just its address. "We live in a town that puts a great amount of value on records and the arts in general, whatever their mass appeal might be," he said. "We're definitely a product of our environment."