The Canoga Park-based vinyl, CD, flexi-disc, cassette and 8-track manufacturer Rainbo Records has closed. It’s legacy, dating back to 1939, is something to celebrate.

In Dec. 12, Rainbo’s longtime general manager Steve Sheldon retrieved the last-ever record to be pressed by Rainbo: a blue vinyl reissue of “The Other Side of Life” by the Moody Blues.
“I’m pretty distraught over it,” Sheldon said a few days before production stopped. “Up until the eleventh hour, I thought a white knight was just going to come along.”
Tall and skinny, with pale blue eyes, Sheldon has worked at Rainbo since 1971 and has been its general manager for 34 years. Like many aging lanky guys, the 67-year-old slouches a bit more than he did a few decades ago; at times his posture seems to reflect his current mood.
Were he 20 years younger, Sheldon says, he would have worked to uproot the whole enterprise to Texas or Tennessee, where the cost of doing business is lower. But a move would be pricey — and it’s not his company.
So Sheldon has spent the last several months informing customers of the closure, talking to employees (most of whom have already taken other jobs or have been let go as duties wind down) and asking clients to retrieve their stored assets.

RR’s story can be accessed over at the Los Angeles Times.