Record Shops you remember. Which ones are much missed?

When I was a student in Birmingham around 1493 there was a record shoppe with a big sign just inside



You can say what you like about Francis Albert Sinatra,

But in this shop… it better be polite.



I would like to celebrate the demise of the sadly missed specialist independent record shop.

Oh the joy of physically holding something you'd previously only heard of... Of browsing for whole afternoon...of having to get up, get dressed and go downtown and ask to hear something before you could buy.

I have still have some vouchers for the Dress Circle reward scheme. For fans of musicals it was a little bit of heaven in Upper St Martins lane. This was before the internet and it was stuffed with soundtracks of the latest shows from Broadway that you’d never heard of. When did it go and join the galaxy of online retailers? www.dresscircle.com/   



My all-time favourite was Caruso and Co. They were near the umbrella shop (I think that’s gone too) where Shaftesbury Avenue meets Bloomsbury Way. Owned and run by an Old couple in I think the late 80s who loved all aspects of great vocal music. Can’t have been that busy as they were happy to chat and play you music for hours. Mainly Opera but I think I bought my first album of Chanson form them. After that they moved to a pedestrian alley somewhere in in Fitzrovia(?). But it didn’t last long. I went back there one day and it was shut. One of the hairdressers smoking outside next door, said they’d hardly been open since the move and she though that he had become ill. Within a year it was gone. I have projected all kind of romantic notions into what happened there.



Youngsters will be amazed that there once was a London shop selling nothing but film music at the bottom of Dean(?) St. And there was an excellent Cinema bookstore in Great Russell St, just by Tottenham Court Road.



I don’t lament the passing of Tower Records. It was huge taking up the entire store across several floors of the corner plot where Regent St and Piccadilly met. This was about 23 years ago. I was invited to an industry do where drink but very little food was served from 5 p.m. About 10 PM I staggered down Regent St to find that the legendary Barbara Cook was performing in the Green Room (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Cook) of the Café Royal. It was full except I could sit on a stool at the bar. More Champagne was ordered and then I was told food was only served at the tables. Next morning, I was very quiet at breakfast. Mrs Snow produced a Tower Records bag continuing 10, yes TEN full priced CDS. She then proceeded to establish that not only could I not work out how I got home but that I had no idea what the CDS were! The killer was when she said “I thought you were saving up to replace our CD player that was stolen last month!” I had nothing to play them on! Discovering a huge record store is open 24/7 (as they say today) when ‘tired and emotional’ can seriously damage your wealth.



Tower Records also failed my test because it was too corporate. You never saw the same assistant twice and you couldn’t build any rapport like you could with the owner of a small shop.



Not only that if you got to know the owner …well there was a stall in Kingston Market in the late 70’s where once he got to recognise you he’d ask “Have you got the live album?"  As long as you were cool and didn’t say “They haven’t done a live album?” he’d say come back in 2 days and you could return for a bootleg. Particularly cool in 1976 to own Electrif Lycanthrope by Little Feat and Back it Up! by Nils Lofgren (a bootleg of a bootleg no less en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_It_Up!!)


(PS I always heard the best place in London for scoring bootlegs was Kensington Market but I always felt out of place with the way everyone dressed! Disco time!)



I’m sure others will come to me, but where were your hangouts of choice?




(I'd like it if people want to widen this to include long lost bookstores).