Graham Sharpe - Vinyl Countdown

To Julian & Helen, who run Second Scene and who not only made me welcome, tolerated my presence, answered my questions, and gave me discounts, but were happy not to demand to see in advance what Id written about them. I thank them and really hope Ive done them justice.

Redundancy after almost half a century spent working for the same company prompted Graham Sharpe to turn to his enduring first love to cushion the blow, sparking a unique autobiographical journey through his life via his ever-growing vinyl record collection; in the process forensically examining every aspect of record collecting; and launching him on an immersive, ongoing ambition to visit every second-hand record shop in the land, perhaps, even, the world

FOREWORD

by Danny Kelly (music fan, former editor of NME and Q, helpless vinyl junkie)

You hold in your hand a miracle. What other word can you use to describe a book, published two decades into the twenty-first century, about the myriad delights of vinyl records?

If, just ten years ago, youd said that vinyl would now even still exist never mind be the subject of widespread conversation, adoration and learned tomes men armed with tranquiliser darts wouldve lurked outside your house, questioning your cognitive health.

All of which goes to show just what a long, strange trip the whole world of vinyl has been on.

For four decades, from the invention of the Microgroove some seventy years ago, to the coming of CDs, the plastic record (LP, single, album, 45, disc, platter, long player, shellac, EP and 100 other variants) ruled the musical roost. Records sold in uncountable numbers, became fetish objects; radiograms, stereograms, Dansettes and stereo systems competed with televisions to be the centre of household attention. Every home had records and the means to play them.

Discs became identifiers, cultural name-tags. When I was at school in the 1970s, the LP you carried under your arm Deep Purple, Curtis Mayfield, David Bowie, King Crimson or Nick Drake spoke of which tribe you belonged to, and broadcast a loud message of how exactly you saw your teenage self.

Records were important. Records were loved.

Then, with bewildering suddenness, it seemed over. Compact discs were the shiny harbingers of a new world of apparently perfect sound, less cumbersome playback gear and, for those with lots of music, fewer fears of catastrophic spinal damage.

Vinyl became old hat, a hissy, popping reminder of post-war austerity, the three-day week and greasy-haired youths in bell-bottoms.

People threw whole collections into skips; charity shops were swamped with Leo Sayer, ELO and Paul Young; people like me who clung on to their precious plastic were mocked in the street by local urchins, dismissed as geeks and freaks. The reign of vinyl ended, consigned to the dustbin of memory and the creaking, dusty shelves of a few diehards.

But somehow mysteriously, incredibly it didnt quite die. Though record shops went bust and the gates of pressing plants were padlocked, records refused to completely depart the stage. Hip hop artists, recognising that the imperfect vinyl sound was human and warm, sampled it into their otherwise flawless digital robo-sounds. Advertising agencies used records and record players to convey an authenticity and tactility increasingly lacking from modern i-life. And music folk fans and artists alike began to ache for a connection with their beloved sounds that amounted to something more than a faceless file arriving in your download box. A whole technology that had been left behind was suddenly once again front and centre, gloriously ubiquitous, and hilariously hip.

I honestly cant think of a historical precedent.

The enduring, often opaque wonders of records, record labels, record players, record shops, record cases, record shelves and record collecting do need chronicling, explaining, enjoying and celebrating. And who better to do it than a man who certainly never made the schoolboy error of offloading his Tamla Motown A-labels on to the local branch of Oxfam?

I first met Graham Sharpe when he invited me to become a judge on the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, the important literary award hed developed with his great friend, the late John Gaustad. At first, if Im honest, I thought he was just a sharp(!)-dressed man who worked for a bookmaker. My illusions were quickly shattered. It turned out that, sure, Graham was a smiling advocate for horse racing and betting, but also harboured ocean-deep passion for football, Luton Town, great writing of every kind and a host of other enthusiasms that most definitely included the universes of records and record collecting.

By the time I discovered that he had bought at auction the leopard-skin-design jacket of the late Screaming Lord Sutch, I knew for certain that this was a man with whom I could do business.

In the intervening quarter of a century, Graham and I have become firm friends. In between a full-time job and a busy career as an author I talk about writing books, he gets on and does it he continued, and still does in semi-retirement, to buy, collect, treasure and talk about music on physical, grooved, formats. His understanding of the quirks and foibles of collectors a mixture of possessiveness, weird gallery curation, completism, lonely late-night filing and hopeless addiction means that I can talk to him about my own out-of-control hoarding without fear of being embarrassed or judged.

Indeed, when I recently revealed to him that I was wasting my life savings on renovating a vast old rustic cowhouse to shelter my sprawling array of vinyl (sub-categories include Poetry 45s, Unlistenable Modern Classical, and Advertising flexi-discs) he just beamed broadly. Cant wait to see it, he said.

You hold in your hand a miracle. A book about a passion, and the hipsters, oddballs and old heads who share it, written by one of their number, albeit a ludicrously erudite one. Ive no doubt that once read, it will take its place on those groaning shelves, proudly sandwiched between the gatefold sleeves, coloured vinyls, lead-heavy box sets and multiple copies of Forever Changes.

It deserves to.

Summer 2019

INTRODUCTION

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ADMITS TO VINYL ADDICTION AND EXPLAINS HOW IT HAS IMPACTED ON HIS LIFE

Vinyls making a comeback, isnt it?

The man in the record section of the charity shop was making friendly conversation as he spotted me looking through the discs.

I looked up and regarded him, perhaps a little too sternly, before responding, perhaps a little too aggressively:

It never went away.

I believe that anyone who owns two or more records is self-evidently a record collector.

Whenever you add another one to however many you already have you are enhancing that collection.

I have thousands of the things, and despite the incomprehension of my Mum who, when asked to make my Christmas present an LP one year, replied, Why? Youve got records already, I continue to add to the total regularly.

This book deals with every aspect of record collecting I could think of. How its done, when its done, where its done, why its done, who does it and how one goes about it.

Read this book with its tales of countless hours spent in 100s of record shops worldwide, at record fairs, car boot sales, online and real-life auctions, romances consummated in vinyl, fruitless searches for elusive records, selling, buying, exchanging, coveting, losing, loving, hoarding, hating, finding, wanting, demanding records and you may just begin to comprehend the emotions involved in a lifelong vinyl love affair.