TYLER, Texas— Fred Powell makes his way into a small white room where the walls are covered with 45s.

The place looks like a record store, filled with stacks of 45s, 78s and 33s.

“I’ve been collecting records for 10 or 15 years,” he said, drifting through the room. “I’ve been doing it a long time.”

Powell, known as “The Record Man,” collects, sells and trades old vinyls as a hobby.

“It’s just fun and I enjoy it, but it’s strictly a hobby,” he said. “It’s not a business. I don’t try to make money; and if my hobby will pay for itself, then that’s all I care about.”

As he dug through an old metal box to find his oldest Elvis record, he rattled off his own favorite artists.

“I’ve got just about everything by the Light Crust Doughboys and everything Bob Wills did,” he said. “Everybody has their favorites, and another one of mine is The Flatlanders. Those guys have all been to Tyler.”

His favorite genres to collect are old country, rock ’n’ roll and rhythm and blues.

“I like to collect 60s and back,” he said. “I get a lot of the newer stuff, I don’t want it, but I get it.”

The rows of old country music albums in his collection are more than just a beloved genre to Powell — they’re part of his childhood.

“My brother and I went to Louisiana Hayride every night and heard Elvis when he was there,” he said. “I was raised country. We’d listen to Grand Ole Opry on a battery-powered radio.”

Music is in his blood, and when he’s not rifling through estate sales and garage sales looking for vinyl treasures, he’s playing in his own band, the Texas Stringbenders.

“I play back-up and rhythm guitar,” he said. “We play in nursing homes or for senior citizens — we just have fun.”

Even though he doesn’t have a singing voice, Powell loves to write.

“I strictly write cheatin’ beer-drinkin’ songs,” he said with a chuckle.

For Powell, the flexibility of his work gives him time for things like his band, building exhibits at Discovery Science Place and working for Meals on Wheels.

“I sell to dealers only,” he said. “They come from all over the country, from Dallas, Fort Worth, Detroit, Oklahoma, Cleveland, St. Louis, and I even had a guy come from Japan. I’ve been keeping it that way for years, mainly because it doesn’t tie me down. I’m retired; I don’t want to be tied down.”

With CDs and digital music, it seems strange anyone is still looking for the old vinyls, but the demand is very real.

“You’d be surprised at the younger people who buy them,” he said. “People want to play new records again instead of listening to CDs. You can buy record players most anywhere. I don’t know what it is about records — it’s just something you enjoy listening to. And with the vinyl, you get everything. All the music is done right then, you don’t get it scattered. You even get all the mistakes.”

The value of a record can range from nothing to thousands of dollars, but their worth isn’t always based on their actual value.

“I had a dealer that bought one from me recently, I had called him up and told him I had some of the old 78s, and he stopped me and asked about a guy I’d never heard of. I had it, and it was a $10 record, but he said he’d give me $100 for it. We both knew it wasn’t worth $100, but it was worth that much to him. It’s all preference.”

For Powell, that one elusive record he’s still searching for is a Robert Johnson 78 album.