Bed-Stuy's Long-Playing Music Man.

JOE LONG, the owner of Birdell's, a venerable independent record store on Nostrand Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, has supplied three generations of music lovers with 45s, 78s, 33s, cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs and the occasional dollop of fatherly advice. Mr. Long, or, as some people know him, Mr. Birdell, began working at the store in 1957 and bought it from the original owner 10 years later. As black music has evolved, from blues and rock 'n' roll in the '50s to soul and funk in the '60s and '70s to hip-hop in the '80s and beyond, so has the store. The back room is still crammed with hundreds of 45s in their decaying paper sleeves, but not for long. Mr. Long, who is 70, is planning to sell his entire vinyl inventory to a British collector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]