Name: Michael Viner.
Comment: Rockin' Records was a great shop, an unexpected, hidden oasis of wonderful 1950s music - though they sold all types of music - up a side street in SE20, a vital part of my musical education as a teenager in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
I bought my first Little Richard LP, my first 50s R&B LPs (Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, etc) and some of my earliest Doo-Wop LPs from here - they'd have things like US Relic LPs, The Jive Five & Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs LPs in the window, that seemed exciting and mysterious when I was first discovering the music.
I never knew the name of the chap who ran it, but many years later in the 1990s, when he opened a CD & record shop in Beckenham Road (near Clockhouse Station) called Glass Onion Music we remembered each other.
(14 September 2014)
Maple Road is situated off Penge High Street and, for as long as I could remember, was the home of a very busy, bustling fruit and vegetable market that also included Ada the Egg Lady, Davis the florist and a number of shops adjacent to the market that used to have open fronts with outside displays. I might not be right but I think Morris’ butchers shop was a bit further up the road past the market and was run by Colin Morris’ Dad who opened Rockin’ Records in 1975/76.
Colin specialised in rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm & blues records but stocked many other genres too and my first visit to the shop in 1976 was a real treat. I picked up a test pressing of Bob Marley & The Wailers ‘Live At The Lyceum’ and a great number of New York pressed Jamaican records including I Roy’s ‘Education For Free’ and King Tubby’s ‘A Good Version’ on Clocktower… still one of my all-time favourite version sides. I became a regular customer and, over the ensuing months, caught up with a number of elusive rhythm & blues and rock ‘n’ roll singles and LPs. If I was too busy at work my Mum used to collect the records for me. I used to chat to Colin and obtained some copies of Nina Simone’s ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ on the Studio 1 pressing on Bethlehem for him that I bought from the Dub Vendor stall in Clapham Junction Open Market. It was next to impossible to obtain at the time and Peckings on Askew Road used to import copies from Mr Dodd in Kingston as well as countless rhythm & blues oldies together with the entire Studio 1 catalogue.
I once swapped some Beatles Monthly books with Colin for some Percy Sledge singles. I remember saying something along the lines of “I can’t wait to get home to play this” when he handed me a copy of ‘Warm And Tender Love’ and another customer saying “you don’t play your records do you?”. I replied “of course I do” and he attempted to explain the importance of only having mint un-played records in your collection. As they used to say in The News Of The World I made my excuses and left and I still don’t understand what he was on about…
I was working as a Play Leader at an adventure playground for the GLC Playleadership Scheme at the time and a number of the older boys were seriously into punk records and Colin began to stock a strong selection of those early punk singles. Our boys used to give me lists of records they were after and Colin would do his best to get them… usually very successfully. Even after witnessing one of the Sex Pistols earliest performances at Chelsea School Of Art I had never quite understood the appeal of punk. However, I began to appreciate it a little more after witnessing the boys enthusiastically pogoing to the records at our regular discos held in the playground hut. I have very fond memories of records like Alternative TV’s ‘How Much Longer’ which I will always associate with those times.
Colin produced a record in 1978, ‘Skateboarding In The U.K.’ by The Rivals, and pressed a thousand copies on his Sound On Sound label. I was thrilled when he asked to design the publicity flyer, handwritten because I’d never used Letraset before, which would lead on to a number of other jobs designing record labels and sleeves. Thank you Colin! I think he gave me a Frankie Lymon LP to thank me but I was delighted just to do it.
I’m not sure when the shop actually closed but I recall briefly seeing Colin behind the counter of his next shop, Glass Onion, by Clock House station in Beckenham a while afterwards.
Noel Hawks (2025)
