From the July 28, 1948, Southwest Shopper:

Record Buyers Test Choices Over Phone at Edina Shop

Ever try picking your phonograph records over the telephone instead of from the listening booth of the store?  Well, you can at the Edina Record and Television shop, 3833 W. 50th St., by Dialing WH. 0503.  Jean Wagner, owner, got the novel idea because many people call wanting to choose music for themselves or as a gift and are not sure just what they want.  They may know some of the words, the tune, or type type of music, but the rest is left to the dealer’s imagination.

“We try to hum (and we can’t carry a tune), recite words to songs, guess, and have even gone so far as to turn up the volume in a nearby booth and hope our party will hear it,”  says Mrs. Wagner.

“One day we decided ‘Enough of this, play it through the telephone attachment and let them get a good listen.’

“We hope this will be a service to our Edina and Southwest Minneapolis residents, not an afternoon’s amusement.  It’s for the use of mothers wanting to listen to children’s music because they can’t leave the house, or a git for some relative or friend overlooked until the last minute, or for folks planning a party and forgetting until the last that they were the dancing kind of guests.”