Record collection recollections
(easy for you to say)
I was talking to my mum the other day about my 10-year-old son and his increasingly selective focus. The way you can lose him for hours to football cards and sticker albums (or yes, SCREENS), but anything that doesn’t grab him in the moment, he just can’t be arsed with it. Films that don’t start with a wallop, having to fold clothes/brush teeth/walk dogs. God forbid you attempt to muster any sense of pride in his homework. It’s all just a nuisance to this guy, rubbish stuff that gets in the way of decent stuff.
“You were exactly the same, Josh!” she interjects, suddenly.
“Oh god, you were exactly the same,” she repeats for added emphasis (it’s an old dramatic trope that all mums are fluent in).
“With your comics, and your records. I’d have to go through your schoolbooks to find scrawled-up notes to know what your homework was - you just didn’t care - but your comics and records were always immaculately kept.”
I immediately know this to be true, no need to peer through the mists of time to confirm that one. I barely remember doing homework when I was a kid because I’m pretty sure I barely ever did it. But I do remember how my bedroom would be a bombsite save for my superhero comics that’d be in title and issue-order at all times (my main ones being Alpha Flight, all of which I still have, Daredevil, some of which I still have, and The Fantastic Four, a few of which I still have), or how my underpants were probably three days in but my growing record collection was as neat as a pin. I’d hurry essays at school but spend hours writing stories for no one other than me.
Nothing’s really changed in that respect. It’s still easy to spot where my passions lie. The way my clothes are categorised in my wardrobe, the way I write every day whether I’m getting paid or not. And in the way I still place inordinate value on my record collection. I’ve been working on it constantly since I was 13 (and I’m now the unspeakable age of 48) and it’s all where it should be. In 35 years, I’ve only once sold a record and I’ve never thrown any away, figuring that they all have meaning, that all of them represent a decision I made based on any number of variables, and oftentimes if I’m not feeling it at the moment I will a little later down the line. Music has a strange habit of shapeshifting like that. They’re my most beloved possession, an ever-evolving blob, and one that can never be replicated with complete accuracy, a bit like a fingerprint.
Anyway, point is, I love them. They’re my pride and joy, my legacy, the gigantic pile of inheritance that my children with almost definitely stick on eBay the minute I up-sticks and head off to the turntables in the sky. So I thought I’d pay them the occasional homage on substack. So for this first outing, here’s a handful that I picked up along the way, all of which I’m very fond of for one reason or another...
Perhaps one day my lad will be doing this with his football cards.
Big Cheese Records Presents: The Meltdown
“Stinking Jazz Funk!” was the promise on the cover and that’s exactly what was concealed within too. Back when I started collecting excellent soul and funk records, this was one of the first ones I bought - a great compilation from the French label Big Cheese Records, and as we all know, the French have impeccable taste in literally everything (croissants, steaks, bedroom activities). It was also one of about 18 records I owned when I declared myself a DJ, so if my ‘set’ was any longer than a couple of hours, this entire compilation would get a spin.
James Brown Live at the Apollo
Before we had the internet telling us where to locate records, this was my white whale, number one on my ‘Wants List’. Not the most obscure album in the world, but legendary in its status and still pretty hard to track down in the late 1990s. So imagine my little face when one lunchtime as a 22-year-old, down in London doing work experience just off Oxford Street (in the offices of the notorious lads mag, FHM), I found myself in a shop on Berwick Street clutching an original pressing of James Brown Live at the Apollo with a price tag of around 70 entire quid. A debate raged in my brain. Could I afford it? No. Would it leave me very much out of pocket? Yes. Was it ever okay to spend this kind of money on a record? No definitely not. Should I get it? No, honestly please don’t, seriously.
I duly handed over the cash and took it back to the FHM offices where I immediately sought out the music editor to wow him with my unbelievable find. I presented it, my hands still shaking on account of having literally just drained all of my resources from my bank account.
“Oh right, that good then is it?” he shrugged, before swanning off for a fag.
Music for Pleasure
I’ve got a few of these in my collection, white label compilations thrown together by some tiny or burgeoning record label, almost always with incredible tracks on them plucked from obscurity. This one’s my go-to in particular because of It’s Getting Better by Atlantis - a German funk rock track that’ll blow a hole in your mind.
Marvin Gaye - Trouble Man
I knew Marvin Gaye from (great) tracks like I Heard it Through the Grapevine which’d been used on the Levi’s ad where Nick Kamen (RIP) takes his trousers off in the launderette, but then at a certain point I stumbled across his Trouble Man album in a second hand record shop - which, according to memory (rightly or wrongly), was part of a small haul that also featured Diana & Marvin (his sexy album of romantic duets with Diana Ross) - and it’s been on regular rotation ever since.
There are some great Blaxploitation soundtracks around - James Brown’s Black Caesar, Roy Ayers’ Coffy, Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly - but this might just be the one. And the mad thing is, the greatest singer of all time barely opens his mouth.
The Essential Mellow Groove
It was while listening to the opening bars of I’ve Been Trying by The Chants - a scouse soul group who once played with The Beatles as their backing band (and later became The Real Thing) - that I received my divine calling to be a collector of soul records, possibly for the rest of my life (and counting). That’s not the only outstanding track on the album either, other faves include Trust Me by Aged in Harmony (excellent group), My Conscience by The Lovelites (greatest of the girl groups). And Lucky Fellow by Maurice Jackson. I don’t say this lightly, this is the greatest soul compilation of all time.
The Who - Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy
Did I buy this record or did it just appear? Pilfered from a relative perhaps? That’s quite possible. All I know is that for as long as I’ve had records I’ve had The Who peering out from a downstairs window of a very Dickensian-looking gaff. Not an official album but a compilation of their singles at that point (1971) it’s most notable as the record that got me fired from a regular DJ night when I found myself tired of serving up the usual ‘soul and funk’ as advertised and veered into I Can’t Explain by The Who. The bar owner saw it as the last straw - over the proceeding weeks I’d taken to the odd left turn more times than was necessary - and duly cut the sound and suggested I gather my things. Everyone booed and threw cabbages at me.
The Byrds - The Original Singles Volume 2
Features the greatest single of all time, which as we all know is Lady Friend, a number 82 hit in the US that didn’t even chart in the UK. I stand by my unpopular opinion.
Aaron Neville - My Greatest Gift
Two reasons for including this album in this small selection. The first is that it features Aaron Neville’s masterpiece, Hercules, which I named my dog after - so now I have a little Schnoodle called Herc thanks to this record. And also because I picked it up in a trendy independent clothes shop in the 90s. I miss the days when you’d find little stacks of records for sale in spots that weren’t exclusively record shops, and once in a while (as here) you’d find a corker.
The Meters - New Directions
Not the best album The Meters made, far too polished for their hardcore fans, but I loved the track Be My Lady. Less hard funk, more seductive soul. Anyway it takes me back to the glory days when word of an incredible collection appearing in an obscure second hand/charity shop would spread and everyone would swarm down to snaffle as much of it as they could. In this particular case, a mountain of records that’d once lived in the library at Thames Valley Broadcasting and had been languishing in a basement somewhere ever since made their way to a local Oxfam at insanely low prices. I also came away with a couple of very decent Isaac Hayes’s and my favourite Ike & Tina Turner album, Workin’ Together.
Next time - the magnificence of early rap records.
