by Twizzle » Thu Mar 07, 2013 12:22 am
I loved reading through this thread – I had completely forgotten how judgemental the staff in some record shops could be, and how you needed to be thick-skinned or even brass necked to ask for what you wanted. In our school tuckshop queue, I mentioned I had just bought a Hendrix bootleg. The guy behind me seemed surprised, saying “You don’t look the progressive type....” It wasn’t just in record stores people were snobby about music.
My first memory of records were at my grandfather’s home where he had a wind-up one housed in a large wooden cabinet. Volume was changed by using soft, loud or medium needles (of differing thickness), and by opening or closing doors at the front, behind which was a concealed horn from the “soundbox”. This was a little mechanical contraption whose needle rode the records, converting the sideways vibrations of the record grooves into sound. A wind-up clockwork motor turned the turntable, and speed (nominally 78 rpm) was controlled by a governor - three brass balls which spun on a spindle, controlled by a lever. I was more fascinated by the mechanics than by his taste in music. It had a lovely smell of heavy oil.
Mum and dad eventually got a simple electric record player, simple in that you had to manually lift the “tone arm” (the equivalent of the sound box) on to the records, and take it off again at the end. It could only play one record at a time. I remember mum taking me to my first record store – the basement of Lewis’s in Argyle Street. The records were sold in a little inshot off the main hall, and the most memorable sight was of all these smart pointed shiny shoes (winkle pickers) tapping with the beat of whatever was playing, on the linoleum. In the end, we came away with a kiddies’ record of some songs from Alice in Wonderland. So much for my Rock’n Roll roots!
The next store I remember being taken to was Woolworths in Shawlands, which had a record section. It didn’t take me long to realise that their records were much cheaper because they were cover versions by nonentities recorded on their own Embassy label. I stubbornly insisted I wanted the real thing, so I was hustled off to Shepherds (later Fletchers) in Giffnock, where they had an Alladin’s Cave of a music shop upstairs. The stair was decorated with album covers of such unknown (to me then) artists such as Elvis and Peggy Lee. We bought “Lollipop” by the Mudlarks, which I guess was a step up from our previous purchase.
A friend had some older brothers and he would take me up to look at their record collection, which did contain both 78rpm and 45 rpm discs. Their record player was more sophicticated, as you could load up to five records on its extended central spindle, lift across and drop a stabiliser arm, and press “automatic” – the turntable would start, a record would drop, and miracle of miracle, the tone arm would lift over and drop on to the record all by itself. Even better, once the record had finished, the tone arm would lift off allowing the next record to drop and so on.
I was still in primary school when my ear was caught by the majesty of the Tamla Motown sound. I persuaded mum to replace our ageing record player and we set off into McCormicks of Bath Street, already mentioned in these pages. Mr McCormack had slicked-back Brylcreamed black hair, and was most attentive to my mother. We came away with a Dansette, which not only was automatic, but was much louder than our old player, and even had an additional base or treble tone wheel next to the volume control. In 1965, dad took me to a Tamla Motown UK Tour concert in the Odeon Cinema, which inspired me to buy more of their artists’ pressings, however as I still never went shopping in town by myself, I continued to patronise the local store in Shepherds.