Jeavons

The Bryan Ferry story published in (1976) mentions this shop and does has a picture of it.
_An anecdote from Jeavons......I was a student at Univ. of Newcastle on Tyne and in early 1964 I was in a booth at Jeavons Record Shop listening with a friend to a blues LP on Oriole called Ray Charles in R" nocookie=1 params="&modestbranding=2&rel=0&enablejsapi=1" >Shop Film

The Bryan Ferry story published in (1976) mentions this shop and does has a picture of it.
An anecdote from Jeavons......I was a student at Univ. of Newcastle on Tyne and in early 1964 I was in a booth at Jeavons Record Shop listening with a friend to a blues LP on Oriole called Ray Charles in R&B Hits...seven different artists including Lightnin Hopkins. A young man about our age asked if he could listen with us, so we were three in the booth. A few months later we saw the man on TV....Eric Burden singing the Animals first hit, 'Baby Let Me Take You Home'. I saw Eric again when the Animals were in First Class on Panam to New York in 1983 for their comeback, but I didn't have the courage to remind him of Jeavons. Eric was interviewed last Sunday on BBC after Chuck Berry's passing.....surprisingly he said Chuck Berry records were not produced in UK until 1964! In fact most of his 45s were issued on London records starting with an EP in 1956 and also his second LP ' One Dozen Berrys' in 1958. Distribution of Chess Records unfortunately went to Pye in 1964. Roy Knighton 25/3/17


I just stumbled across your site accidentally, I used to work at Jeavons in the sixties it was my second job after I left school. I started at Pudding Chare shop, then one day I was asked to take something up to the Percy Street shop and ended up working there. Mr. Jeavons used to run the record side downstairs and Mrs. Jeavons used to oversee the Musical Instrument side upstairs and there was also a repair room upstairs as well, Newcastle Club A-Go-Go was just down the street.

After a brief change in employment I got a job at Disque in Park View, Whitley Bay and then moved to manage the Prudhoe Street shop in Newcastle when the manager there left, that is where I met my wife who started working with me. She had worked at Alderson & Brentnall record department in Northumberland Street and then was employed a J.G. Windows, Central arcade, before coming to Disque. We both left there and went to work at OZ Records in Westgate Road, for a while, it opened as Virgin Records first, this was a publicity stunt, Virgin lost the case when it went to court as they had not registered the name, but it was after that it was renamed Oz Records.

We left there after we were married and I went to onto manage HMV Sunderland, which opened as E.M.I. Record & Tape Centre, this was E.M.I. policy for new shops by the then man in control Gerry Ord, our General Manager Dave Wilde was against it eventually it did get changed to H.M.V. and my assistant manager took over, I am still in touch with him today. We then moved to West Yorkshire and I managed H.M.V. Leeds for a good part of the seventies leaving in the early eighties. I have pictures of that store and possibly one or two of Disque in Whitley Bay. Generally the decline of H.M.V. was over many years due to those in control, in my time they brought in central buying and my then Area Manager rose to become General Manager after Dave Wilde’s time he left not long after being demoted to the Manager of Oxford Street, this was when James Tyrrell took control of H.M.V. he was an accountant from A.B.C. Cinemas, speaks volumesdoesn’t it! Basically many of these people didn’t have any vision or interest in music for that matter, my Area Manager had been Manager of Leeds and left it in a mess, yes I know, how did he get promotion? It’s called being brown nosed! Anyway I turned that shop around and my claim to fame was installing the ‘Singles’ department which later became a feature in many new stores and the Area Manager I refer to was actually against it in the beginning! Still got lots of vinyl going back to being a teenager, I will be seventy this year!

Hope you enjoy reading this brief history it’s good that this site is remembering these times because they we’re good and the only time I enjoyed going to work!

Pete. (2018)

They had outlets at:
35 Percy Street (beside the Handyside Arcade), Newcastle
44-46 Pudding Chare (off the Bigg Market), Newcastle
26 High St. East, Wallsend, Northumberland &
Skinnergate, Darlington, Co. Durham
Paul Thompson (2020)