Going for a Song: A Chronicle of the UK Record Shop

Garth Cartwright & Stewart Lee

Softcover | 15.24 x 2.54 x 22.86 cm | 292 pp

Flood Galley Publishing | 2018 | 9781911374046

Illustrated with dozens of "lost" photos and images from the UK record shop's glorious heyday, Going for a Song chronicles the entire history of the UK record shop. Aaward winning author Garth Cartwright details how record shops across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland served as oracles for music lovers.

And what stories these shops can tell! Liverpool's NEMS launches The
Beatles on the world. A drunk, young Bob Dylan records in the Soho basement of
Dobell's Jazz, Blues & Folk shop. Levy's of Whitechapel begins selling Yiddish 78s
and ends representing Motown's UK operation. David Bowie, Dusty Springfield
and Pete Burns all serve apprenticeships in vinyl emporiums. Mods flock 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 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 bottest dance 12"s. Then things fall apart...
Told here for the first time is a secret history of the UK as witnessed through
the nation's record shops.

"From wax cylinders to dubstep, Garth Cartwright lovingly chronicles the rise, fall and resurrection of the UK's record shops. Complete with larger-than-life wide boy skullduggery, behind-the-counter shenanigans and appearances from Prince Buster and B.B. King (amongst many of your favourite musicians). Superb!" Horace Panter (The Specials)