GOING FOR A SONG

'A Chronicle of The UK Record Shop', we all fondly remember standing in front of the racks of 12" vinyl with their fabulous artwork album covers and flicking through, wishfully hoping to own one day all of the fabulous tracks of our favourite artists. This one-of-a-kind book chronicles the entire history of the British record shops across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland which served as oracles for music lovers. And what these shops can tell! Liverpool's NEMS launches The Beatles onto the world. A young drunk Bob Dylan records in a Soho basement of Dobell's Jazz, Blues & Folk Shop. Levy's of Whitechapel begins selling Yiddish 78s and ends representing Motown's UK operation. Cartwright has travelled the length and breadth of the country and conducted more than 100 interviews with some of the icons of the record shop trade and the wider music industry. They include Martin Mills of Beggars Banquet, Geoff Travis of Rough Trade, Andy Gray of Andy's Records, Ralph McTell, Chris Barber, The Specials and many more. In effect the book is a social history of more than a century of unprecedented cultural and political change. David Bowie, Dusty Springfield and Pete Burns all served apprenticeships in vinyl emporiums. Mods flocked to Transat Imports for Soul 45s. Rita & Benny's is the UK's first Ska shop. While London swings, East End gangsters use Carnaby Street record shops to shift 10,000 stolen Simon & Garfunkel LPs. Stanley Kubrick films 'A Clockwork Orange' in The Chelsea Drugstore. Virgin and Beggars Banquet's founders build empires out of rock music shops. Rock On fuels punk, while Rough Trade, Small Wonder and Good Vibrations service the revolution. Reggae gets heavy in the Dub shops and Black Market Records rules Rave with the hottest dance 12"'s. Then things fall apart. With dozens of 'lost' photos and images from the glorious heyday. Rock on! 292 extra large pages, 15.25 x 28.8cm. Paperback.