Graham Warr Records

Comment: Graham Warr Records in the Oasis Market was open throughout the 1970s and was arguably the Mod, Soul and Northern Soul record shop.

Graham was also a highly influential DJ on the Soul and Northern Soul most notably at Chaplins which was located at Five Ways in Faces. He then went on to DJ at the Rum Runner.

I used to work for Graham on his record stall outside the Oasis on Saturdays, before heading off to Wigan Casino with a box full of vinyl from his stall to sell.

I don’t know what has become of Graham, but I would like to get in touch again.

Name: Linda Price
Comment: Chaplains was not Faces, it was in the corner of a yellow Victorian building with a black door. Faces was in Five Ways shopping centre. Chaplains was Broad Street. Graham was the DJ at the Catacombs soul club before chaplains.

The Catacombs was, before Wigan, the greatest little soul club and many first-played Northern Soul tunes were his finds. First played at Catacombs, not Wigan. He still lives in Birmingham.
(2020)

Name: Michael Wilkins
Comment: I lived in Coventry at the time and spent loads of time and money in Graham Warr's shop, I remember he was into jazz-funk as well, anybody remember the all-dayers in Birmingham? Not sure if it was the Locarno, it must have been around 1975 and they played Northern Soul and Blackpool Mecca stuff plus jazz-funk, used to get a lot of black guys there, I recall the Northern Soul guys sitting on the dancefloor, when the jazz was played, they stopped coming and it went mostly jazz, the guy who used to DJ was a friend of Graham Warr, and I think Graham himself used to DJ there, they also did a night at a club in Birmingham I think was called the Rumrunner, at the time disco was coming in and Latin jazz was also being played alongside the soul, these nights had a lot more black guys than the Northern Soul-only nights.
(20 February 2015)