Heanor Record Centre

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)

Joe Jammer

07 Jun 2023 at 06:13

WOW! Way back when I was a kid from the southside of Chicago I was sent my Heanor Record Centre catalogue monthly(?) from which I would order records that were not available in the U.S. at that time. It was the greatest, and it helped launch my own long and storied recording career... see for yourself at joejammer.com.

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!

Graham Hall

07 Oct 2023 at 10:35

Former resident of Derby in the UK, they would occasionally advertise in the music papers of the time. Bought from them at odd times. Good quick mail order service too.

Dave Harwood

28 Oct 2024 at 04:40

I found this piece in the 'Ripley & Heanor News' dated 25th July 1969: “EXPERIMENT IN LOCAL TRADING. A little while ago retail price maintenance on gramophone records was abolished, and this has enabled one local firm to make a most interesting experiment in trading. Heanor Record Centre Ltd., of 41 Derby Road, Heanor, commencing tomorrow (Saturday), has arranged a week of cut-prices of a most unusual nature. On the two Saturdays involved, during normal working hours, a specific range in records has been earmarked each day for reduction. But the Monday to Friday in between holds the surprising feature in that the cut-price sales are to take place only between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. in the evening. A spokesman for the firm states that he feels many workers are usually unable to take advantage of special offers, and the hours have been chosen to suit these customers. Heanor Record Centre has been well-known for some considerable time for its nationwide postal service, and its exports in record trading. These exports cover 58 countries at present, and its director, Coun. Albert Hand, has appeared on television a number of times to expound his knowledge on the teenage market regarding records. Now, as a service to Heanor, this firm is turning its efforts to local trade, and has commenced the campaign with this unusual evening cut-price venture.”