? regarding a piece of music it’s like an itch you cannot scratch, you simply have to hear it. Being able to hear it straight away is just fantastic and, as my Spotify round up email of 2018’s listening habits will testify, I made full use of my chosen streaming service last year. But perhaps it’s that very availability that slightly cheapens the experience. Like many people, I bought my first record aged around nine.
It was by a longforgotten group called The Cufflinks and it was entitled ‘Tracy’ . It took weeks to save for and further time to pester my Mum to take me to Woolworths in Lewisham High Street to buy it. But when I finally had it, I played it over and over again. Further weeks of saving followed, this time to obtain a single called ‘Sugar, Sugar’ by The Archie’s who were not a real group at all but were featured on a TV cartoon show.
Bizarrely, the lead singer on ‘Sugar, Sugar’ was the same person who sang on The Cufflinks tunes, Ron Dante. Ron never actually joined The Cufflinks, the I have something on my mind. The first time. Ah yes, that never to be forgotten powerful experience of a new, much anticipated event which, by definition, can only happen once.
I know what you’re thinking but park that thought. I’m talking music. Everyone remembers the first record they bought, almost certainly a single, probably the biggest pop record of the day. Depending on your age, it may have been a 7” or 12” single, a Cassingle (remember them?) or a CD Single.
What it would have almost certainly involved was some effort; a trip to one, two or even several record stores to find your favourite track. So, I wonder, for all the convenience of having almost all of humanity’s recorded music output available via a smartphone app in your pocket, whether something has been lost? Perhaps the thrill of the chase or the fact that a digital product will never be as prized as a physical one. Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to stream.
As a music obsessive, when a thought pops into your head 37DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME? clips on YouTube feature another singer who mimed Ron’s part, and, of course, he never joined The Archie’s on account of not being a cartoon. And so, my collecting continued, always singles, always carefully selected because money was tight. I bought ‘I’ll Be There’ by The Jackson 5 and then another Cufflinks single called ‘When Julie Comes Around’ , almost certainly chosen because I had a crush on Julie who lived on the 8th floor of the block of flats I grew up in!
Then, thanks to my fifteen year old neighbour, Ronnie Simms, I clearly had some sort of musical epiphany because when Jimi Hendrix died I bought an EP [Young people: EP stands for Extended Play] which featured ‘Voodoo Chile’ , ‘All Along the Watchtower’ and ‘Hey Joe’ , which was quickly followed up with singles by Deep Purple, Free and Atomic Rooster. All records to be treasured, played, dusted and carefully returned to their sleeves when finished with.
When I was a little older it was albums that I coveted. Unfortunately I was even less able to afford these than singles, so they were strictly for Birthdays and Christmas. I asked for K-Tel and Ronco compilations, which were the forerunners of the Now series. I also developed an obsession with a band called 10cc and collected all their albums.
And then that wonderful day came, aged 15, I got a job! A Saturday job at my local supermarket which didn’t pay much but did enable me to spend more money on records. Fast forward a year or two and, having left school, I started visiting pubs. By great good fortune, possibly changing the entire course of my life, my friends and I started visiting a pub in Sydenham called the Golden Lion.
A typical South London boozer, it featured a saloon bar at the front with polished mirrors and plush seating, while at the rear there was a larger and longer bar which on a Saturday night featured a DJ by the name of Robbie Vincent. It may have been just an ordinary, slightly down at heel London pub but it was our Paradise Garage, our Ministry of Sound, a place for musical education. As it turned out, Robbie was a London legend. Had he been 30 years younger he would have been spending his weekends on a private jet commuting between gigs in Ibiza and Paris.
Although his sets contained (now classic) rock tracks by the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Status Quo and Steppenwolf, the bulk of what he played was totally new to me and frankly blew me away. It opened my mind to forms of music I scarcely knew existed, Soul, Jazz Funk and Disco, much of it not released in the UK. I started to listen to his Saturday lunchtime show on Radio London as well as Greg Edwards’ early evening show on Capital Radio. Radio 1 at this time was blissfully unaware that there was anything going on in the cities of Britain and ignored dance music almost entirely unless it happened to cross over to the Top 40.
Listening to Robbie and Greg in those days opened up a new world for me. I had to own these records. But where to find them? Woolworths certainly didn’t stock them and Diamond Records in Catford only seemed to stock UK-released records.
I couldn’t Shazam the tracks because Shazam had not been invented. No point in putting a few words of a lyric into a browser hoping for a match because, well, browsers, the internet and indeed PCs did not yet exist. And Daniel Ek hadn’t been born yet, let alone had the idea for Spotify. No, I taped the show and as soon as it finished, jumped on a bus to try and find the record shops that Robbie name-checked.
And so, to my original point, the fact that these records were so difficult to find increased their value. During those trips to the West End of London I found the records that I heard in the clubs and on the radio. Armed with money from my supermarket job, which by now was conveniently on Thursday and Friday nights, I was able to spend Saturdays record shopping and listening to the Robbie Vincent show on the radio. The records I bought during those trips informed my taste and had an impact on me that still resonates today: ‘Could Heaven Ever Be Like This’ by Idris Muhammad, ‘Bama Boogie Woogie’ by Cleveland Eaton and ‘Got My Mind Made Up’ by Instant Funk.
I also bought tracks by People’s Choice, Thelma Houston, Ashford and Simpson, Francine McGee and, most memorably, ‘Running Away’ by Roy Ayers. "the bulk of what he played was totally new to me and frankly blew me away. It opened my mind to forms of music I scarcely knew existed, Soul, Jazz Funk and Disco, much of it not released in the UK" ?
