Name: Arthur Johnson Comment: As a collector now for over 45 years I started with John Beal's in East Street. The record store was downstairs and had three listening booths and a large stereo listening room. It sold all the latest hard-to-find albums - Velvet Underground, Mothers of Invention. I even stood next to Charlie Watts who bought records there. Bredons at Bartholomews had a downstairs record store selling items like The Doors and Fever Tree. I bought my ticket to the first IOW 1968 festival here. Bredons moved from here to a site in East Street and then took over John Beal's. (19 May 2009)
Name: Len Liechti Comment: I bought my first record in 1963; it was The Beatles' I Want To Hold Your Hand, to play on my younger sister's newly-acquired Ferranti autochange record player (one valve, about two watts mono power). With singles at 6/8 and my pocket money at two shillings a week I couldn't afford to buy any more records new, but I discovered a second-hand bookshop near the south end of Gardner Street, about five doors from the end on the left as you faced south, which also sold pre-owned comics and old jukebox records. I knew they were ex-jukebox as they'd had the middles removed. These came at ninepence or a shilling each. I recall buying Eden Kane's Forget Me Not, Hank Levene's Image and Adam Faith's As You Like It - all great tunes but a bit dated in the face of Beatlemania, hence their retirement from the jukebox. Later I also bought a battered copy of the Rolling Stones No 2 LP there, the second album I ever owned. Of course, nowadays jukeboxes all use internet downloads, so no more ex-jukebox records. (8 February 2010)
Name: Arthur Johnson
Comment: As a collector now for over 45 years I started with John Beal's in East Street. The record store was downstairs and had three listening booths and a large stereo listening room. It sold all the latest hard-to-find albums - Velvet Underground, Mothers of Invention. I even stood next to Charlie Watts who bought records there. Bredons at Bartholomews had a downstairs record store selling items like The Doors and Fever Tree. I bought my ticket to the first IOW 1968 festival here. Bredons moved from here to a site in East Street and then took over John Beal's.
(19 May 2009)
Name: Len Liechti
Comment: I bought my first record in 1963; it was The Beatles' I Want To Hold Your Hand, to play on my younger sister's newly-acquired Ferranti autochange record player (one valve, about two watts mono power). With singles at 6/8 and my pocket money at two shillings a week I couldn't afford to buy any more records new, but I discovered a second-hand bookshop near the south end of Gardner Street, about five doors from the end on the left as you faced south, which also sold pre-owned comics and old jukebox records. I knew they were ex-jukebox as they'd had the middles removed. These came at ninepence or a shilling each. I recall buying Eden Kane's Forget Me Not, Hank Levene's Image and Adam Faith's As You Like It - all great tunes but a bit dated in the face of Beatlemania, hence their retirement from the jukebox. Later I also bought a battered copy of the Rolling Stones No 2 LP there, the second album I ever owned. Of course, nowadays jukeboxes all use internet downloads, so no more ex-jukebox records.
(8 February 2010)