It’s not exactly a secret that I have a thing about records. And that has probably been the case since I was a small child.
There was a record player in the front room, and in the meter cupboard was a cardboard box of 7” singles. Most without any sleeves. I was fascinated by these black pieces of vinyl with the different coloured labels in the middle. I would play the same ones over and over again. The music and lyrics becoming embedded in my brain. I knew the records by sight before they went on.
The black label with the grey band at the top; that was the London American label, and it was Curtis Lee singing “Under The Moon Of Love”. Then there was the bright yellow label with black writing on. This was the MGM label and was Connie Francis’s “Stupid Cupid”. Then there was the purple label of Pye, and Lonnie Donegan with “My Old Man’s A Dustman”, with its humorous set pieces which I still use all these years later. The dark red with faint grey writing of the Parlophone label, Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren “Goodness Gracious Me”, and another London label, slightly different as it wasn’t American. This time Pat Boone with “Speedy Gonzales”. I’ve played the latter two just this week. Of course, they wouldn’t get made nowadays with their cultural appropriation and stereotyping to the fore in them.
Over the years I bought lots of 7” singles, albums, 12” singles, cassettes, CDs and even downloads, but nothing matched that mania for 7” singles. My collection has had its ups and downs in terms of volume, and its back down to a more manageable level nowadays from the peak of over 11k six years ago.
A couple of things have brought the thought of seven-inch singles to my mind recently. The first being that there was a writing exercise around early musical memories a couple of weeks ago in one of the writing groups I go to, and some of the above sentences come from that.
The second is I’m reading a collection of books by Andrew Cartmel in his Vinyl Detective series. I read the first one last year, but I’ve read three more in the last week and I’m about to start on number five. They are thoroughly entertaining, even if the searching for records by the lead character brings about all sorts of shenanigans you wouldn’t expect to come across when flicking through some vinyl.
There is a lot a searching through charity shops for records involved, and it reminded me that I have done a hell of a lot of the same thing over the years. Even in the years where there were virtually no new records being released, there would still be lots of second-hand stuff lying around.
So, I thought I’d go and have a wander around the charity shops of Crawley on Friday to flick through the vinyl as a nostalgia thing.
The first rule of charity shop records is that you have to wade through the mountains of LPs first. There will be lots, and they will invariably be made up of classical, soundtracks and then James Last and Ray Conniff records. I’m used to that.
What I’m not used to is there being piles of those naff albums, but then there being no 7” singles in sight. Not a single one (or a single single if you want). In any of the charity shops. So, in a brief sojourn from workshops and other tedious calls at work I had a quick wander around the charity shops on Boundary Road in Hove only to find the same thing. I thought back to a previous week when out in Shoreham, and it was a similar thing there, even in the record shop I nipped in.
Where the hell have all the 7”’s gone? There used to be boxes full to sort through, but now there is nothing. So much for a nostalgia laden wander around the shops.
And that’s the other thing, the charity shops are disappearing as well. Well, certainly in Crawley. Dr Barnardo’s went a few years ago, but in the last year Sense and Revive have gone from The Broadway, and in the last few weeks Cat’s Protection has closed on The Broadwalk and Save The Children has disappeared from The Boulevard. That’s half of the normal charity shops in the town centre gone (the furniture ones don’t count).
I’m not sure where I’m going to get my fix of nostalgic flicking through seven-inch singles now.
But I’ll leave you with a list. Of seven 7” singles with seven in the title.
The Four Top – Seven Rooms Of Gloom
Cola Boy – Seven Ways To Love
James Fountain – Seven Day Lover
Dubliners – Seven Drunken Nights
Chuck Woods – Seven Days Too Long
OMD – Sailing On The Seven Seas
White Stripes – Seven Nation Army