Comments
Comment: Way back in the day it was a record shop, then a purely Elvis record shop. It was a good old Aladdin's Cave! One of the only places you could pick up new copies of all the deleted back catalogue LPs. Great days being an Elvis fan in the early/mid-1970s!
Comment: Used to do mail order from them in the mid-1960s to the US. I miss those days.
(1 September 2013)
Name: Tom Ballantyne
Comment: I discovered their mail order service in 1967 or so and ordered my copy of Sgt. Pepper's plus Beatles: A Collection of Oldies, some Kinks, Donovan, etc. All nice British pressings. The mail service was incredibly fast for those days (or now, for that matter). I think I got my discs in a week. Changed my life! I guess I should thank Albert Hands - thanks, Albert, wherever you are!
(1 August 2015)
Name: Robert Martin
Comment: I grew up in KC and my first order was in early 1966. All the Who singles, as well as the newly released Quick One LP. Also: Five Live by The Yardbirds and The Searchers' Greatest Hits. Be the coolest kid on your block...
(4 November 2016).
Comment: Astounding! For some reason, I thought of this place tonight and did an impulsive Google search only to find myself here.
I grew up in a small American town in New England and the man at my local record store used to let me have his old copies of Billboard and Cashbox Magazines where I'd spend hours studying the record charts - and particularly those for the UK.
One day I noticed a tiny ad from Heanor Record Centre on a back page of Billboard offering to provide me with British pressings and I knew I had struck GOLD! I began ordering from them, money permitting, and was able to obtain all of the difficult to find or unreleased Kinks singles that I'd never even heard of - plus a few Kinks LPs and a few records from other artists (A Billy J Kramer LP and Wayne Fontana's LP with 'Pamela, Pamela', among several others).
Heanor was very good to me during that time - very professional and accommodating - and usually quick on the uptake. My treasured records always arrived in perfect condition and I still have them all today.
Over the years we'd lost touch and, as life has a tendency to do, we grew apart and went our own ways - but I've always kept fond memories of the place. For some reason, I thought they were near London and also in Herts.
Good memories of a little shop all the way across the world. Thanks for providing this page!
(2017)
Name: Rick Hoffman
Comment: I believe I found out about the Shop from CKLW-Windsor Canada which was a 'partner station' with Radio Luxembourg. I still have my c.1964 newsprint order-catalog and my UK 45 of Rosalyn by The Pretty Things.
(2018)
Name: Robert Kelly
Comment: Don't forget, there was no internet then. I bought Syd Barrett's The Pink Floyd then for $5. It arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 10 days. My favorite buying experience of all time.
(2020)
Name: Robert Rebersky
Comment: Lovely to see this! I bought quite a bit via mail order back in the 1960s. Great service from the UK to the US. I still have a few of those catalogues!
(2021)
But thank you for inspiring my recording career... I have since played guitar on over 150 albums, EPs, and singles... selling over 22 million copies one way or another, and it all started with the Heanor Record Centre!
Although I don’t remember the catalog format, I do remember the amazing extent of records available, many of which were not available at all in the U.S. I almost immediately ordered mostly Rolling Stones British LPs (“Laminated with 'Clarifoil' made by British Celanese Limited”), which greatly impressed everyone compared to the cardboard LP packaging in the U.S. (The UK Stones LP versions were also on the Decca label where the U.S. versions were on the London label).
My purchases included 45 RPM “Extended Play” (EP) recordings that had 2-3 songs on each side (depending on length), including the “5 X 5” EP by the Stones, which was a five-song version of their 33RPM “12 X 5” LP. EPs were completely unheard of in the U.S. I also purchased Stones’ LPs with long versions of “2120 South Michigan Avenue” and “Out of Time”, not to mention getting songs not available in the U.S. (such as “Poison Ivy”, “Money” and “Bye Bye Johnny”), along with live versions of “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” and “Pain in My Heart”.
My friend and I (we were 14 years old) completed the order form and mailed it with cash in the form of 40 US dollars (for which my parents later criticized our youthful stupidity). Amazingly we received a very professionally packaged shipment in just a couple of weeks! That was my first and only experience with the Heanor Record Centre.
Some of those records have been in a storage facility for over ten years and I fear the worst for them (I’m moving again soon and will likely look at them in the next few months).