Little Axe Records
Per capita, Portland might be the best record store city in America.
Portland punches absurdly above its weight. The bar for what gets racked here is quietly higher than in cities five times its size.
Why Little Axe
Little Axe is a deep-listener's room: soul, jazz, gospel, blues, country, all hand-selected, all clean, all reasonable. The kind of shop you trust to buy blind.
Owner Mike's ear is the editorial filter. Walk in, ask for something close to what you already know, and walk out with something better.
What to dig for
Private-press gospel and country soul, modal jazz, blues 78-to-LP-era reissues, and the kind of Stax-adjacent obscurity that makes the trip worth the airfare.
After Little Axe
Mississippi Records on N Mississippi Ave for folk, blues and global. Beacon Sound for ambient and experimental. Music Millennium and Crossroads for sheer volume; Jackpot for indie.
Also worth your afternoon
- · Mississippi Records
- · Beacon Sound
- · Music Millennium
- · Jackpot Records
Full map of every record store, listening bar and fair in Portland on the Vinyl Atlas map.