A shot of Rhythm 'n' Booths

Lamenting the demise of the high street store is occupational therapy for the avid collector of records.  Save for a few specialist havens and the last surviving HMV on Oxford Street, even the music mecca of London doesn’t satisfy the retail cravings of its many music junkies.  I have never once downloaded a single MP3.  To supplement my occasional bursts of bricks-and-mortar shopping, nowadays I score CD sound fixes online from Amazon, eBay and some specialist anorak websites for more obscure items.

Back in the sixties, when outlets for fans to hear new music were limited, an after school trip to my local record shops was not a jaunt but a compulsory requirement.  To one side of the hoovers, heaters and food mixers in Weston Hart, the electrical store in Albert Road, Southsea, was its record department.

A foray into vinyl heaven started off with a flip through the double rack of LP’s.  This served two purposes: the first was to inspect what was on display and whether anything new had arrived in the few days since the previous visit.  Sadly, the pennies and threepences scraped together from parsimonious levels of pocket money rarely accumulated to the 32s 6d cost of an album.  The second purpose was to check out who was working behind the record counter; was it the curmudgeonly store manager with the pencil behind his ear and the dandruff sprinkled, tweed sports jacket or, more encouragingly, the otherwise unattainable blonde girl with the mini-skirt and faux Mary Quant hairdo?  The significance of the difference was how many singles you could get away with hearing in one of the three listening booths. 

The listening booths were shaped like oversized visorless salon hairdryers screwed to the wall and reaching down as far as the biceps of an average sized adult.  In the ceiling of each, a cloth covered speaker produced a trebly, tinny sound.  Mr Curmudgeonly would demand proof of sufficient funds to purchase at least one 45 before placing a disc on a turntable.  On a good day he might be persuaded to play more than one.  Ms Faux Mary Quant, however, would be only too pleased to keep the music playing for as long as housewives occupied Mr Curmudgeonly with kettles, cookers and sewing machines.

Most early sixties singles lasted no more than two-and-a-half to three minutes.  Ten or twelve minutes in a record store could therefore prove a totally rewarding musical experience – sometimes shared with one or even two others squeezed into a booth.

In June 1964, the release of The Animals’ ‘House of the Rising Sun’ heralded a number of changes for contemporary music.  With a running time of 4 minutes and 17 seconds the record did more than merely provide better value for the 6s 8d cost of a single than its competition for the number one spot.  And no, I am not talking about the extent of the annoyance it caused Mr Curmudgeonly with its continual requests for plays.  Here was an arrangement of a piece whose subject matter was the doings of an early twentieth century New Orleans brothel. 

The domination of the Hit Parade by solo singers with Elvis-like quiffs had already been quashed by the raw guitar sound of Merseybeat.  Groups – they weren’t yet called bands – were spawned all over the country: from Manchester there were The Hollies, Herman’s Hermits and Freddie & The Dreamers; from London there were the Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things and The Kinks; even Portsmouth proudly contributed two-fifths of Manfred Mann (albeit that drummer Mike Hugg actually hailed from Gosport).

The Animals came from Newcastle.  Untainted by even the slightest suggestions of sugar-coated boy-meets-girl teen romance, The Animals unashamedly sang about sex and its effect on the psyche.  ‘Baby Let Me Take You Home’ was no precursor to a snog on a parental sofa. ‘I’m Crying’ and ‘Don’t let Me Be Misunderstood’ were more than cries from the heart, they were screams from the soul.  Supplementing originals with covers of ‘proper’ R’n’B numbers by the likes of Ray Charles and Bo Diddley, The Animals conveyed a musical message that wasn’t confined to their lyrics.  Within a relatively short time earthier content became commonplace, prime examples being The Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’.

At the same time and shortly afterwards, the era of the extended rock song began to emerge: Bob Dylan’s ‘Highway 61’ and ‘Desolation Row’, Vanilla Fudge’s souped up cover of ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ and The Doors’ ‘The End’.  Eventually the contemporary rock form would stretch a piece across the entire side of a 33 rpm album: Bob Dylan again with the haunting ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’, Pink Floyd’s ‘Atom Heart Mother’ and the admittedly execrable ‘In a Gadda-Da-Vida’ by the otherwise largely forgettable Iron Butterfly.

By the time the decade was spent, albums had become the key component of music collections and the listening booth had become a thing of my past.  The quasi symphonic pomp of Deep Purple’s ‘Concerto for Group and Orchestra’ (59 minutes 26 seconds) and, subsequently, Yes’s ‘Close to the Edge’ (18 minutes 43 seconds) became the currency of students’ record collections.  The evolution of the rock song form had reached the end of a journey that had started with the story of a New Orleans brothel.

‘Baby Let Me Take You Home’, ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Be Understood’ by The Animals appear in my collection on the original Columbia singles.  ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ also appears on an early EMI vinyl compilation originally released in 1966 complete with covers of ‘Hallelujah I Love Her So’ and ‘I Believe To My Soul’ by Ray Charles and ‘Roadrunner’ by Bo Diddley (ne Ellis McDaniels).  I have most of the other records mentioned in this particular blog in my collection in their original vinyl format although I have never owned any recording by Iron Butterfly in any format. 

The Weston Hart premises in Albert Road, Southsea are now occupied by Haslemere Bicycles.