Name: Jim Wilson
Comment: Ebony Sounds ran from 1974/5 until 1980/81 and sold all genres of music with an upstairs mail order section selling soul. We put out regular soul lists and had a stock of over 75,000 soul imports in our upstairs warehouse.
We had customers like Ian Levine, John Manship, Randy Couzins etc., all well-known names on the Northern Soul scene. In the shop we had thousands of second-hand 45s & albums.
Steve Bryant (another well-known name on the soul scene at that time) used to help out in the shop on Saturdays. We had to move out in the 1980s when the council allowed a property company to buy the premises to build an office block - which never actually happened.
The shop is still there today, as a wine bar.
Name: Tony Swettenham
Comment: I remember Ebony Sounds very well, I used to go there when I was a kid, from early 1978 until shortly before the shop closed. I used to look forward to taking my pocket money and picking up a couple of 1960s/70s 45s and the odd LP at the weekends! There was also Roach's around the corner, which seemed to have tons of racks of long-unsold early 1970s prog. If I remember correctly they closed around the same time.
Name: Mark Griffiths
Comment: If I have it right Jim, you later had a shop in Chingford Mount Road next to a florists? I used to go in and chat to you quite often when I lived up there, and I still make the occasional purchase from your eBay listings.
(10 October 2014)
