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PATTY GRIFFIN.
Her album 1000
Kisses was excellent.
The follow up "Impossible Dream" was even better.
Its one of those that after a few listens you're not sure about, then you find that it's never out of the CD player.
The UK release includes three bonus tracks, recorded live with Emmylou Harris that are not on the US version.
February 2007 and it's deja vu !!
Patty's next album "Children Running Through" - and I went through exactly the same scenario as before.
On
the first few listens I was not impressed, and at one stage I took it
out of the CD player to listen to something else. Mistake.... Stick
with it and its a fantastic album.
Patty's latest album, released in 2010 is "Downtown Church", and features a change of direction, this time to Gospel.
Check out pattygriffin.net for the latest news etc. |
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On her recent tour Lucinda Williams played locally in Leamington Spa.
I managed to catch up with "Lu" backstage afterwards for a chat and she signed my gig poster and
"Little Honey"
album sleeve.
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I have been collecting records since
about 1970.
The first album I purchased was "With the
Beatles" in 1963, but my collecting days really started with the
purchase of the "School's Out" album by Alice Cooper.
In the good old days there were plenty of
record shops in Coventry to get your vinyl fix.
Fennells, Jill Hansons, Paynes, Cranes,
The Sound Centre and The Forum Hi-Fi centre were the local ones,
and not forgetting Hits And Misses Vintage Records. Dealing mainly in second hand albums and singles, they had two shops for a short time
before closing the one in the City Centre (Corporation Street) just
leaving the original
one in Far Gosford Street. Many a bargain was to be found here.
As
with every other City there were W H Smiths, Boots, Woolworths and record
departments in the Co-op and Owen Owen. All these establishments were frequently visited.
Then in the '70s along came the original
Virgin records in the City Arcade. I could be found in here a few lunch times during the week, listening to albums, and again on Friday
lunchtimes spending a couple of quid from my weekly pay packet !
Upstairs at Virgin, Pete
Waterman, who at the time was virtually unknown outside of the
Coventry area
owned the "Soul Hole".
As the name suggests they sold mainly
soul music, although I do recall buying
Gary Wright's
"Dream Weaver" single
there.
Virgin eventually closed down and it was a number of
years before they returned to Coventry with the "Megastore"
format, before selling out to "Zavvi" in 2008, who eventually went into receivership and in early 2009, and the shop closed down.
The EMI record shop opened in Hertford Street,
later to become HMV record shop.
Then they opened another shop in The Precinct, then relocated both shops into
one larger
shop not far from the original shop in Hertford Street.
Ironically they have recently relocated again, into the premises previously occupied by
Virgin Megastore and Zavvi !
We have also had Our Price, Revolver, Way
Ahead Records, the much missed Spinadisc (who also had shops in Northampton and Rugby ), Soundhouse, Discovery and MVC. All have now ceased to trade and all we are left with is a solitary HMV shop.
Although not based in Coventry city
centre, we were fortunate to have 2 Fopp outlets locally.
One on the
campus at Warwick University and one in Leamington Spa.
Fopp found it
difficult to attract new money into the business, despite some of its
shops being
profitable, the inevitable happened and all stores closed
down. Opening the flagship store in
London's Tottenham Court Road was
one of the reasons cited, and another was their
purchase of some of the
Music Zone stores, a chain which itself had gone into liquidation
only a
matter of months before.
Renowned for their no nonsense pricing
policy with many CD starting at £5, Fopp was a great place to pick up
those 70's and 80's reissues, together with DVD's and books.
Some good news however, is that HMV has
saved six Fopp branches and 70 jobs. The stores will continue to trade
under the Fopp name, independently of HMV.
Their old premises in Leamington Spa has
recently been moved in to by a new retailer, "Head". Their policy is
following the same as Fopp's, although they seem to be doing more
DVD's and less CD's. Good news is they continue to do a huge range of
back catalogue CD's and great prices.
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The early 80s saw the advent of Record
Fairs, and the magazine "The record collector" was born out of
"The Beatles Monthly", both giving a new
method of record buying.
- I
had been trying to track down a copy of the Split Enz single
"Another Great Divide"
- (green Chrysalis label) for many
years without success, and remember the feeling of
delight
- when thumbing through the boxes of 7" singles at Coventry
Record fair I came across it in mint
- condition.
- Nowadays you just tap
your requirements into a search engine or more likely into eBay and
- within five minutes you've found what you want AND paid for it.
- Yes,
the internet is a great thing but you just don't get the same feeling
when you finally locate that
- disc that's been evading you for years !
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This page was last
updated
Friday 4th February 2010
© A S Mackness 2010
