From left, Del Sinchak, Anthony LaMarca, Dean Anshutz and Gary Rhamy hold some of the original tapes from the Peppermint Recording Studio archives that could provide songs for future editions of "Peppermint Presents..." (Staff photo / Andy Gray)

YOUNGSTOWN — Peppermint Recording Studio on Indianola Avenue is a treasure trove of Mahoning Valley musical history, and Anthony LaMarca and Dean Anshutz are the prospectors panning for its gold.

Or maybe they’re detectives.

The musicians don’t wear trenchcoats, but Anshutz makes more than one Columbo reference while talking about their efforts to find forgotten recordings.

Volume One of their finds is available now. “Peppermint Presents … RAT RACE!” contains a dozen previously unreleased songs, most of which were recorded at Peppermint or its predecessor, United Audio.

They include tracks by some of the most successful acts to come from the region — Human Beinz, Glass Harp and a pre-Glass Harp Phil Keaggy — and others that are best remembered by rare music collectors.

That describes Anshutz and LaMarca. Both are avid collectors who occasionally team for DJ gigs as the Peppermint Pals, where they spin vintage local records.

“We were just getting so into collecting, learning about these bands, meeting the players,” LaMarca said. “There are so many reissue labels out there releasing some of this stuff, it got to the point where, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?'”

“It’s the classic story — someone comes in here, gets what’s good, and leaves and takes it back to their place,” Anshutz said. “We’re lucky we have Peppermint here still.

“What I think is special about this compilation is the interviews and the stuff we do. Gary (Rhamy) has a personal connection with these people that makes it more special than just releasing tracks,” he said.

Rhamy, who has recorded and engineered five Grammy-winning polka albums in his career, has operated Peppermint since 1971, and he was the man behind the console for most of the recordings, and the original tapes still are stored there.

LaMarca, a member of the Grammy-winning band The War on Drugs who also releases music as The Building, and Anshutz, who is the drummer for Red Wanting Blue and also plays drums for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Zombies, often are busy with their own musical projects. But when they’re in town, they often can be found rooting through the tapes in the studio.

“We’ll show up and Gary goes, ‘What are you doing here?'” Anshutz said. “Your day is now ours.”

The holy grail among their finds is “Rat Race,” the title track for “Peppermint Presents …” Iron Knowledge, led by brothers Gary and Milton Blalock, released a few singles on Tony March’s Tammy Records that are highly sought by collectors.

“Rat Race” wasn’t one of those.

“When I found that, I was tripping down the stairs that are already very trippable, thinking, ‘I hope this is good, I hope this is good,’ and it was so good,” Anshutz said. “I have audio of us listening to it for the first time. Essentially, it’s us losing our minds.”

That’s when they decided to focus on unreleased tracks.

“As a fan of this stuff, it’s exciting to find an original tape for a record you already knew existed, but to find a tape that you didn’t know existed and then for it to be really, really great, it’s addictive,” LaMarca said.

“A lot of this stuff was never a part of an album, just recording sessions,” Rhamy added. “It never went anywhere or they ran out of money and never had 45s made.”

One of the recordings was discovered by multiple Grammy nominee and local polka legend Del Sinchak.

“I was going through all these tapes I had archived and I found this tape I made with Phil Keaggy,” Sinchak said. “I didn’t know I had it.”

Keaggy was about 14 years old when he recorded the Beatle-esque “All My Wishes” with Sinchak at United Audio around 1966, years before Glass Harp was signed to Decca Records and Keaggy went on to a successful career as a contemporary Christian artist.

Glass Harp also is represented with “High Flight,” part of an album’s worth of material the band recorded at United Audio (only the highly sought after 45 “Where Did My World Come From?” / “She Told Me” was released from those sessions).

Keaggy signed off on allowing the track to be used and understands the appeal of hearing these early recordings, but he’s more focused on the music he’s making today, LaMarca said. Others were thrilled to hear their early recordings, and some of those reactions can be heard on the album.

“Peppermint Presents …” includes short clips of in-studio conversations, interviews and snippets of commercials and other things recorded at Peppermint that are used as segues between songs by Morly Grey, LAW, Chapter II, The Roller Brothers, The Behnke Brothers, Blue Ash, Flagg and Ronnie Lee Cunningham.

“What’s exciting for me is 95 percent of these artists were regulars at Duci Music, which I owned,” Sinchak said. “I knew all these guys when they were young kids and used to hang around the store.”

“Peppermint Presents …” is available for digital download now on Bandcamp and can be heard on Spotify and other streaming services. Bandcamp also is taking preorders for physical media — CD, cassette and three different vinyl editions on black, gold and “red shag” vinyl.

“For us this all started from record collecting, so having a physical thing was more important to us than a digital thing,” LaMarca said.

With the backlog at vinyl pressing plants, the LPs probably won’t be ready until late 2022 or early 2023. When those items are ready, LaMarca and Anshutz would like to do some kind of release party — at the very least a Peppermint Pals DJ session with some of the musicians who are still in the area there to sign copies.

And it’s clear from talking with the pair that this is volume one of a planned series of releases.

In some cases, they have the music but no way to track down the people responsible for the recordings. LaMarca said they’re looking for information on a band from 1970 called The Hustlers (email them at info@peppermintrecords.

com).

There are stacks of tapes at Peppermint they still want to review. Others already have been transferred, including what Anshutz described as, “the most hard kind of acid rock, sludgey and amazing, that’s never seen the light of day.”

Rhamy added, “We’ve already transferred so many tapes. We probably have a year’s worth of releases ready to go.”

agray@tribtoday.com