Going For A Song: A Chronicle of the UK Record Shop

This is a really well researched look at the glorious institiution that is the record shop. It looks at the early beginnings...the shellac, the shared display space with at times incongorous other goods. What is interesting is perhaps the motivations behind the people/owners of the shops...was it Love ..Or Money. For some the latter...for many I would like to think the former. I was lucky enough to work in some small independent records shops in the late 70's before heading off to London and got the Our Price call and then Virgin. I witnessed a lot of changes which are covered in the book....the insane number of stores opening trying to make the biggest chain, the great CD Ripoff....and the ups and downs of the Music Industry. I learnt a lot from these experiences, mostly about music, but also some things about waste, greed and deception. I've now seen the rise again of more small shops, Vinyl is back...and like a sucker..|@m in there thumbing through the racks old and new, my obsession has returned.So the book names names of shops, some alive and some not now. Even while writing the book, there were losses recorded. There are interviewsand quotes with customers, owners and shop workers. A lot of names I recall with happy memories. I worked at Gallup in the eighties on the Music Industry charts...I rang a lot of the independednt shops to ask about releases they had sold. It was detective work, and the shop satff were always most helpful, running round looking for the stock so we could then contact the labels and confirm what they were, and if they were eligible. These people knew their stuff....many were Specialist stores, and they were absoultley on it.If you are a record fan, you will love this....

Quite an entertaining book although the title is a bit misleading, this is not a chronicle of the UK record shop. There is barely a mention of Scotland, Wales and NI get a page or two between them. The author does venture beyond London a couple of times, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham & even Ipswich get a few pages. Of course most of the action takes place in London, doesn't it always, and had I not lived in London for a decade I might have given up on this book as it assumes everyone knows their way around Soho. A couple of maps showing the proximity of shops to each other would have helped. As often happens every genre except heavy rock/metal gets it's story told despite fans of these genres being pretty obsessive collectors. And for some reason some pretty well known London stores don't rate a mention, Flyover Records in Hammersmith come to mind.

I spent my student and early working life living off Ladbroke Grove in London. This book brought back many memories of trawling the record shops in those days. The early days of Ted Carol and Rock On, the bickering Bills, being offered 10p trade in by Record & Tape Exchange for a prized piece of vinyl. As the author arrived later in London he has had to rely on interviews for some of the earlier dysfunctionality of these shops and their owners but he comes more into his own a bit later when he witnessed it himself. Cheapo Cheapo, Sister Ray, they are nearly all there. I knew less about the out of London shops but visited some and relied on Cob Records for my mail order. The writer captures the essence of all these shops from birth to death.I have to say that towards the end of the book, as I like many others had switched from visiting record shops to trawling online, I started to speed read and skip pages.I do wonder how interesting this book would be if you weren't there.What is interesting is that probably the only people who got rich were the likes of Epstein and Branson who got out and moved onto other things. For the rest it was mainly an obsession.

Anyone over a certain age (or, even, people at different ages) will remember record shops with fondness: whether buying the latest 78 or 45 at a local shop or a record section of a department store, or later an LP or cd at one of the big chains scattered throughout the UK.In his exhaustively researched book, Garth Cartwright tells the story of Britain’s record shops, tracing the roots to earliest stores like Cardiff’s Spillers or London’s HMV Oxford, right through the years to the major players like Virgin, Tower and others before the internet virtually wiped out all competition. Past times are recalled when the shops were a common meeting and listening place, and specialist music (jazz, folk and others) outlets flourished, frequently detailing the person and their store, like Richard Branson’s Virgin, Brian Epstein’s NEMS and Andy Gray’s Andy’s Records, the good alongside the dodgy dealers in the author’s extensive coverage of UK retailers.An entirely fresh slant on the music business, the book concludes with a current store directory, although some listed may have subsequently gone the way of others in the book – closed up shutter – since the book’s publication.

In truth the book was purchased through little more than mild curiosity - just how interesting could the history of the British high street record shop be? To my surprise, I quickly discovered it was absolutely extremely interesting indeed!The depth of Garth Cartwright's research allied to to his easy-going reading style had me looking forward to each new page. Not only did I learn about the fascinating histories of long forgotten retailers from a distant past, I was reminded of shops I'd long since forgotten about, which in the 70s, 80s and 90s played a major part in my own life.I honestly cannot recommend the book enough, regardless of whether or not you grew up in an age when high street record shops played a major role in your musical development. I only hope the new owner of HMV takes time out to read - and learn from - this superb, extremely enjoyable and educational tome!