MERSEY MUSIC BOX MEMORIES

I was really pleased to get Graham Jones’ book Last Shop Standing for a Christmas present. I knew Graham from the very early 80s when he managed The Cherry Boys and I was in bands Come In Tokyo and then The Persuaders. I also was responsible for a Liverpool fanzine called The Garden Party, which ran for about nine issues over two years, and when Graham worked in HMV he was kind enough to stock this for me and cassettes of the band to sell. He supported local bands in every way he could. You could not have met a nicer bloke, so I hope he doesn’t get upset again when I correct him about the Music Box record stores in Liverpool.

Both shops were based in Tue Brook and not Old Swan or West Derby as he says. Both were on West Derby Road however. The one that still exists is in Tuebrook/Rocky Lane area (as you come out of Tue Brook on the way to the city centre). The other shop, which has now gone and is where an estate agent shop is located, was in the heart of the Tuebrook shops, facing the roundabout there. It was one of my favourite record shops and my first purchases were bought there on the way to school.

I remember buying Alice Cooper’s Muscle Of Love LP when the power cuts were on and the shop was full of candles to give some illumination. I still wonder how many records were warped by the heat that the candles emitted. Another time I was in the shop I picked up a copy of Paul McCartney’s ‘secret’ single, Walking In The Park With Eloise, by The Country Hams, for about 10p from a bargain box on the counter. I didn’t realise it was Paul McCartney or how collectible this was at the time. The box had quite a few copies of this in its picture sleeve. Any collector would be quid’s in now if he had seen those. The current shop was (and still is) a curiosity shop. They had (and still do have) loads of brown boxes with artist names written on with a black felt tip pen and which contain singles and EPs going back years. I remember there being separate boxes with The Move, The Who, The Kinks written on the side.

In the 70s when I started buying records on a collector basis, I asked what Cliff Richard EPs they had and a box was presented to me with quite a selection, all brand new. I think they made me realise how expensive this hobby might become, but to be fair to the Music Box, these EPs would have been in mint/as new condition and probably a bargain now, but at the time, I was a teen with basic pocket money. The best record store in Liverpool around this time in my opinion was Edwards in Kensington. This was strictly second hand records as opposed to the Music Box(es) who sold new records.

by John Jenkins
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