Working in HMV in the 60 's by Cliff White
I am happy to offer a few off-the-cuff memories of my time working at the original HMV record store - 363 Oxford Street, London - from mid-1964 to some brain-swiped day in late 67/early 68.
Once employed there I was ever-ready to recommend my music preferences to customers but selling the hottest wax was the name of the game: across the spectrum service with a smile.
Among those I served were Vera Lynn, Del Shannon, The Who (in full Union Jack regalia - them, not me), Jimi Hendrix and Kim Fowley, who pranced around the department shouting, “Freak Out!” Jimi came in to buy blues and soul records and I insisted he include Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ The Whammy amongst his purchases - which may account for his subsequent career.
During my tenure with HMV it was owned by EMI who began experimenting with a self-service department and started acquiring other record shops to convert into suburban and regional HMV outlets. More of which later. When I was first employed it was still the sole flagship, managed by the rotund figure of Mr Robert (Bob) Boast, who had reputedly joined the store before the Second World War. All staff were issued with uniform jackets or blouses and obliged to address each other as Mr, Miss or Mrs.
Song publishers Ardmore & Beechwood occupied the top floor of the building. This was a bonus as they’d occasionally offload boxes of American 45s they’d been sent for review. It was important to get wind of this bonanza in advance to be first at the trough for the freebies. There were usually obscure soul gems among the discarded discs.
Adjacent to them, was a small recording studio where engineer Jim Foy taped Cliff Richard, The Beatles and others recording messages of gush for their fan clubs. I believe other artists recorded demos in this little-known hidey-hole. History tells that after The Beatles had been rejected by Decca it was Jim Foy who recommended Brian Epstein to Ardmore & Beechwood who then sent him on to George Martin at EMI - so the mop tops’ success was all Jim’s fault, folks.
Cosmopolitan Corner, specialising in what is now termed ‘world music’, was tucked away on the mezzanine. Ground floor was the classical department. ‘Pop’ music (including folk, jazz, blues, soul, easy listening, etc.) was consigned to the basement.
It was a lively basement, descended upon each lunchtime and end of working day by hordes of young person’s asking to be played the latest hits in the open sound booths around the walls. We also had a couple of enclosed listening rooms for the more ‘serious’ customers, who tended to drop in during the afternoon lull. Bribing me with a lunch, The Who’s manager Kit Lambert used one of the listening rooms to promote an acetate of I Can’t Explain to likely takers. Apparently, he didn’t have an office at the time.
The stockroom extended under Oxford Street, where in quiet moments one could lift a hatch in the floor to watch thousands of cockroaches scuttling from the sudden light, presumably back down to the Central Line that rumbled below.
Pop sales staff were corralled in a large enclosure in the middle of the basement, surrounded by a ring of browser boxes full of empty record sleeves - the 45s had hand-written cardboard inserts. The discs themselves were filed on our side of the fence, where we also had record playing turntables for all the listening booths. It was then the store’s policy to stock at least one copy of every UK record release still in catalogue. As the record companies didn’t delete their products, particularly LPs, as rapidly as they might cast them aside today, we were the custodians of an impressive library of vinyl, some items dating back to, ooh, when I were a lad.
Being under the EMI umbrella, HMV staff were urged to ‘bump up’ sales figures of EMI releases. In a shocking expose I can now reveal that EMI releases were automatically ranked higher than they should have been on the in-store sales chart, which was then a key contributor to the national pop chart. As EMI had acquired the Motown franchise from Oriole and launched its Stateside label this didn’t conflict too much with my sensitivities.
Every so often we’d get wealthy owners of continental discotheques swanning in, flashing wads of cash and requesting “the latest two hundred hip 45s” (or words to that effect). Oh joy! As a responsible salesman it was my bound duty to include all the most recent Brit beat group hits but that still left plenty of room to fill up the box with blues kings, James Brown, Guy Stevens’ Sue releases, other soul favourites and whatever else I fancied. In my imagination, somewhere in France or Spain or Italy or Germany there is now a demented record collector who was sparked off by something I snuck into a care package to their local disco.
At the other extreme, another colleague was a big fan of Cilla Black. He contrived to get an invitation to meet Cilla backstage at a London theatre, masquerading as a PR person from EMI’s Manchester Square headquarters, looking after three visiting delegates from EMI Sweden, aka the HMV store. As one of those ‘delegates’ I put on my best Swedish accent to chat to Cilla in her dressing room before nipping along the corridor to say hello to the stars of the show, The Everly Brothers.
I don’t think I bothered to try to be Scandinavian with Don & Phil. Have occasionally thought about confronting Miss Black again and saying “Surprise! Surprise!”
I’m bound to also mention in passing a memorable colleague who shall remain nameless. A tall, grey-faced, ravaged-looking individual (with whom I shared a flat for a time; he wasn’t as scary as he appeared to be), he’d had an unconventional upbringing and was a clinically diagnosed schizophrenic. This did not affect his salesmanship except in moments of extreme stress, when the hordes were swarming. He’d then lie on the floor in the middle of our corral and howl like a rabid dog. Always guaranteed to grab the customers’ attention. A real crowd pleaser.
In January 66 I left HMV for four or five months to tour Germany as lead ‘singer’ (I use the term loosely) with my cousin’s beat combo, and then to loon about with Screamin' Jay on his second UK tour. That’s an entirely different ramble. In my second stint with the store, now managed by former assistant manager Ken Whitmarsh, there were grand plans afoot. Incidentally, Ken, who had employed me in the first place and remained a friend until his premature death, was principally a jazz man - a knowledgeable buff - but that didn’t blinker his retailing acumen. However it did mean that HMV always had as strong a stock of jazz albums as our specialist competitors Asman’s, Collet’s, Dobell’s and Ray‘s.
Circa 1966 HMV opened its first self-service department (where the discs were now in the sleeves in the browser bins) and bought a shop in the Edgware Road to be run on the same principal. Our in-house prototype, by the main entrance on the ground floor, was of immediate benefit to a trader who had a record stall just off Cambridge Circus at the junction of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. He’d come in, select an armful of albums of his choice, and then sprint off with them along Oxford Street. Our security guard, an elderly ex-war sergeant with a gammy leg, was thwarted every time. I believe the arrangements were eventually tightened up.
Being part of the team revamping purchased shops could be interesting. We’d go in and log all the existing stock for removal; builders would follow us to convert the premises into an HMV; we’d go back in to restock the new store. I clearly remember one shop in North London that had been harbouring a stockroom full of unsold LPs and 45s, piled high in dusty boxes. I picked the sellotape off the first box I came to: Jeez, 25 mint copies of Gene Vincent’s Be-Bop-A-Lula. Unfortunately, I was only a poorly paid salesman otherwise I’d have bought the entire contents of the room. Never did know what happened to all that old stock, although I suspect a couple of copies of Mr Vincent’s single inadvertently fell into my knapsack.
Towards the end of my days at HMV I had been promoted to the dizzy rank of Assistant Manager of the Pop department and was earmarked to manage one of the growing number of branch stores. At the same time I had been initiated into the mysteries of marijuana by a summer-break temping university student and to LSD by a young temptress in Bayswater. No contest: I tuned in, turned on and dropped out.
Once employed there I was ever-ready to recommend my music preferences to customers but selling the hottest wax was the name of the game: across the spectrum service with a smile.
Among those I served were Vera Lynn, Del Shannon, The Who (in full Union Jack regalia - them, not me), Jimi Hendrix and Kim Fowley, who pranced around the department shouting, “Freak Out!” Jimi came in to buy blues and soul records and I insisted he include Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ The Whammy amongst his purchases - which may account for his subsequent career.
During my tenure with HMV it was owned by EMI who began experimenting with a self-service department and started acquiring other record shops to convert into suburban and regional HMV outlets. More of which later. When I was first employed it was still the sole flagship, managed by the rotund figure of Mr Robert (Bob) Boast, who had reputedly joined the store before the Second World War. All staff were issued with uniform jackets or blouses and obliged to address each other as Mr, Miss or Mrs.
Song publishers Ardmore & Beechwood occupied the top floor of the building. This was a bonus as they’d occasionally offload boxes of American 45s they’d been sent for review. It was important to get wind of this bonanza in advance to be first at the trough for the freebies. There were usually obscure soul gems among the discarded discs.
Adjacent to them, was a small recording studio where engineer Jim Foy taped Cliff Richard, The Beatles and others recording messages of gush for their fan clubs. I believe other artists recorded demos in this little-known hidey-hole. History tells that after The Beatles had been rejected by Decca it was Jim Foy who recommended Brian Epstein to Ardmore & Beechwood who then sent him on to George Martin at EMI - so the mop tops’ success was all Jim’s fault, folks.
Cosmopolitan Corner, specialising in what is now termed ‘world music’, was tucked away on the mezzanine. Ground floor was the classical department. ‘Pop’ music (including folk, jazz, blues, soul, easy listening, etc.) was consigned to the basement.
It was a lively basement, descended upon each lunchtime and end of working day by hordes of young person’s asking to be played the latest hits in the open sound booths around the walls. We also had a couple of enclosed listening rooms for the more ‘serious’ customers, who tended to drop in during the afternoon lull. Bribing me with a lunch, The Who’s manager Kit Lambert used one of the listening rooms to promote an acetate of I Can’t Explain to likely takers. Apparently, he didn’t have an office at the time.
The stockroom extended under Oxford Street, where in quiet moments one could lift a hatch in the floor to watch thousands of cockroaches scuttling from the sudden light, presumably back down to the Central Line that rumbled below.
Pop sales staff were corralled in a large enclosure in the middle of the basement, surrounded by a ring of browser boxes full of empty record sleeves - the 45s had hand-written cardboard inserts. The discs themselves were filed on our side of the fence, where we also had record playing turntables for all the listening booths. It was then the store’s policy to stock at least one copy of every UK record release still in catalogue. As the record companies didn’t delete their products, particularly LPs, as rapidly as they might cast them aside today, we were the custodians of an impressive library of vinyl, some items dating back to, ooh, when I were a lad.
Being under the EMI umbrella, HMV staff were urged to ‘bump up’ sales figures of EMI releases. In a shocking expose I can now reveal that EMI releases were automatically ranked higher than they should have been on the in-store sales chart, which was then a key contributor to the national pop chart. As EMI had acquired the Motown franchise from Oriole and launched its Stateside label this didn’t conflict too much with my sensitivities.
Every so often we’d get wealthy owners of continental discotheques swanning in, flashing wads of cash and requesting “the latest two hundred hip 45s” (or words to that effect). Oh joy! As a responsible salesman it was my bound duty to include all the most recent Brit beat group hits but that still left plenty of room to fill up the box with blues kings, James Brown, Guy Stevens’ Sue releases, other soul favourites and whatever else I fancied. In my imagination, somewhere in France or Spain or Italy or Germany there is now a demented record collector who was sparked off by something I snuck into a care package to their local disco.
At the other extreme, another colleague was a big fan of Cilla Black. He contrived to get an invitation to meet Cilla backstage at a London theatre, masquerading as a PR person from EMI’s Manchester Square headquarters, looking after three visiting delegates from EMI Sweden, aka the HMV store. As one of those ‘delegates’ I put on my best Swedish accent to chat to Cilla in her dressing room before nipping along the corridor to say hello to the stars of the show, The Everly Brothers.
I don’t think I bothered to try to be Scandinavian with Don & Phil. Have occasionally thought about confronting Miss Black again and saying “Surprise! Surprise!”
I’m bound to also mention in passing a memorable colleague who shall remain nameless. A tall, grey-faced, ravaged-looking individual (with whom I shared a flat for a time; he wasn’t as scary as he appeared to be), he’d had an unconventional upbringing and was a clinically diagnosed schizophrenic. This did not affect his salesmanship except in moments of extreme stress, when the hordes were swarming. He’d then lie on the floor in the middle of our corral and howl like a rabid dog. Always guaranteed to grab the customers’ attention. A real crowd pleaser.
In January 66 I left HMV for four or five months to tour Germany as lead ‘singer’ (I use the term loosely) with my cousin’s beat combo, and then to loon about with Screamin' Jay on his second UK tour. That’s an entirely different ramble. In my second stint with the store, now managed by former assistant manager Ken Whitmarsh, there were grand plans afoot. Incidentally, Ken, who had employed me in the first place and remained a friend until his premature death, was principally a jazz man - a knowledgeable buff - but that didn’t blinker his retailing acumen. However it did mean that HMV always had as strong a stock of jazz albums as our specialist competitors Asman’s, Collet’s, Dobell’s and Ray‘s.
Circa 1966 HMV opened its first self-service department (where the discs were now in the sleeves in the browser bins) and bought a shop in the Edgware Road to be run on the same principal. Our in-house prototype, by the main entrance on the ground floor, was of immediate benefit to a trader who had a record stall just off Cambridge Circus at the junction of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. He’d come in, select an armful of albums of his choice, and then sprint off with them along Oxford Street. Our security guard, an elderly ex-war sergeant with a gammy leg, was thwarted every time. I believe the arrangements were eventually tightened up.
Being part of the team revamping purchased shops could be interesting. We’d go in and log all the existing stock for removal; builders would follow us to convert the premises into an HMV; we’d go back in to restock the new store. I clearly remember one shop in North London that had been harbouring a stockroom full of unsold LPs and 45s, piled high in dusty boxes. I picked the sellotape off the first box I came to: Jeez, 25 mint copies of Gene Vincent’s Be-Bop-A-Lula. Unfortunately, I was only a poorly paid salesman otherwise I’d have bought the entire contents of the room. Never did know what happened to all that old stock, although I suspect a couple of copies of Mr Vincent’s single inadvertently fell into my knapsack.
Towards the end of my days at HMV I had been promoted to the dizzy rank of Assistant Manager of the Pop department and was earmarked to manage one of the growing number of branch stores. At the same time I had been initiated into the mysteries of marijuana by a summer-break temping university student and to LSD by a young temptress in Bayswater. No contest: I tuned in, turned on and dropped out.
The
books of Graham Jones are available in record shops or online. The latest book
The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen' has been turned in to a
film. It is released on 13 April on DVD and is available in record shops.
Distributed by Proper Music.
www.thevinylrevivalfilm.com
@Revival_Vinyl
For
film screenings and talks contact Graham at graham@lastshopstanding.co.uk
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