Now, where exactly was Dobells?

[Alan Balfour]

By the way, although I use the word office, it's the two-room basement of my house, formerly the abode of forum contributor Alan Balfour.

And last month marked the 30th anniversary of my moving out having taken residence in December 1969. But to sort of bring this back to topic, when I saw Jo Ann Kelly perform in Southampton in 1990 one of her remarks to me was, "you lived in Charlie Gillett’s basement flat surrounded by lots of books and records". My problem today is not the 5000 or so blues LPs/EPs/45s (which have remained static since 1989 when I left London) but the books/magazines/papers etc which grow at an alarming rate. I'm told that my house resembles a cross between a library and a newsagent!

[NormanD]

I recall The Swing Shop in Streatham looking much like this. Records were piled up vertically on flat surfaces, there were so many of them. I remember the guy who ran the place quizzing me before I bought, to make sure I knew what I was getting. Maybe that's why the unsold stock was so large.

Does anyone still have a poly carrier bag from Dobell's Record Store? It had a photo of a row of jazz / folk / blues LPs. You could read and check off the titles. That would be good to see again - far better than some of the Guardian's 1,000 films to see before I snuff it.

Sorry, I've no tips for storage. We inherited a couple of hundred more LPs/EPs a few years back from Deb's parents which, like everyone else so far, we can't get rid of. A lot of these are OK Topic and Folkways albums, which have to be balanced against the unlistenable Burl Ives and Eastern Bloc state choirs.

I seem to have turned this topic from "Household Hints" into a reminiscence group.

norman

[Alan Balfour]

I recall The Swing Shop in Streatham looking much like this. Records were piled up vertically on flat surfaces, there were so many of them. I remember the guy who ran the place quizzing me before I bought, to make sure I knew what I was getting. Maybe that's why the unsold stock was so large.

Good Old Dave Carey, that shop in Mitcham Lane might have been the size of a shoebox but there were bargains to be had there if prepared to delve.

Does anyone still have a poly carrier bag from Dobell's Record Store? It had a photo of a row of jazz / folk / blues LPs. You could read and check off the titles.

Many of them. They were originally made of paper and I opened one out and stuck it on the wall of my bedroom in the house I grew up in. Mind you I've still got those from when the "folk & blues department" was located in a basement at 10 Rathbone Place before it moved to 75 Charing Cross Road in October 1965. Have kept the leaflet announcing the move -"Yonder Come The Blues To Dobell's New Folk and Blues Shop" - sad ain't I?

[Charlie]

....when the "folk & blues department" was located in a basement at 10 Rathbone Place before it moved to 75 Charing Cross Road in October 1965. Have kept the leaflet announcing the move -"Yonder Come The Blues To Dobell's New Folk and Blues Shop" - sad ain't I?

Not sad at all, Alan, as confusing to me. I've been convinced that I went down to the basement of Dobells at 75 Charing Cross Rd in 1958, a schoolboy standing among the jazzers as they chatted to Ray, the guy who always seemed to be there. Could there have been a different jazz shop on Charing Rd in the late 50s? And I don't mean the bookshop at the top of the road, with a folk and jazz section in its basement.

Did Dobells move into premises previously occupied by a jazz shop? If not, where did I buy my Ken Colyer EP and Chet Baker singing My Funny Valentine? Frightening how the mind can reinvent the past....

[Rob Hall]

Can't claim the 50s, but I remember Dobell's on Charing Cross Rd from when I moved down to London (well, Bromley) in '73. I remember those bags too. Was one of the albums "The Story Of The Blues"? There was definitely a Duke Ellington in there, and a Mingus.

[Alan Balfour]

....when the "folk & blues department" was located in a basement at 10 Rathbone Place before it moved to 75 Charing Cross Road in October 1965. Have kept the leaflet announcing the move -"Yonder Come The Blues To Dobell's New Folk and Blues Shop" - sad ain't I?

Not sad at all, Alan, as confusing to me. I've been convinced that I went down to the basement of Dobells at 75 Charing Cross Rd in 1958, a schoolboy standing among the jazzers as they chatted to Ray, the guy who always seemed to be there. Could there have been a different jazz shop on Charing Rd in the late 50s? And I don't mean the bookshop at the top of the road, with a folk and jazz section in its basement.

Did Dobells move into premises previously occupied by a jazz shop? If not, where did I buy my Ken Colyer EP and Chet Baker singing My Funny Valentine? Frightening how the mind can reinvent the past....

That would have been in the original 1940s Dobells Jazz shop at no.77 the basement of which in later years became the secondhand department run by the late John Kendall after (the also late) Ray Bolden moved into 75 to run the folk/blues shop. Hope this makes sense?

[Charlie]

That would have been in the original 1940s Dobells Jazz shop at no.77 the basement of which in later years became the secondhand department run by the late John Kendall after (the also late) Ray Bolden moved into 75 to run the folk/blues shop. Hope this makes sense?

Whew, not going completely Alzheimers then

so please confirm the sequence:

first we have Dobells at 77 C X Rd -

then what was that about 10 Rathbone Place?

and then 75 C X Rd?

[Alan Balfour]

That would have been in the original 1940s Dobells Jazz shop at no.77 the basement of which in later years became the secondhand department run by the late John Kendall after (the also late) Ray Bolden moved into 75 to run the folk/blues shop. Hope this makes sense?

Whew, not going completely Alzheimers then

so please confirm the sequence:

first we have Dobells at 77 C X Rd -

then what was that about 10 Rathbone Place?

and then 75 C X Rd?

Methinks Charlie we're veering way off topic here but what the hell.

This is all from memory since I'm unable to lay hand to the very informative Doug Dobell obit from the Guardian. Dobell's parents ran a bookshop at 77and sometime in late forties their jazz loving son gradually changed the focus to selling jazz 78s etc. In the 50s he and A N Other began a jazz mail order-cum-distribution outfit named Agate which operated out of a premises at 10 Rathbone Place. With the folk/blues boom of late 50s/early sixties Dobell began selling folk/blues and related from this address under the auspices of a guy named Jerry. When the shop next door to 77 C X Rd became vacant in 1965 Doug took up the lease and moved the folk & blues into 75 in October that year. Xmas Eve 1980 the leases to both shops expired and weren't renewed due to the proposed redevelopment of that side of Charing Cross Road. It took Dobell about a year to find other suitable premises (21 Tower Street). Now having bored everybody to death....

[NormanD]

I'll only reply once (easy with that Submit button, Eugene). There was also a record label called 77, under Dobell's auspices (its biggest seller was the Dick Farina / Eric von Schmidt album from 1963, shortly being reissued on CD, by the way).

I veered this off topic 'cos I was musing about the photo of the album sleeves - which were in no apparent order - on the bag. Any chance of a photo of the bag?

Norman

PS Look at that last sentence I've just written. Has my life really come to this??

PPS Back to topic. c hristian asked:

What about, not the result, but the process of reorganizing?
Any tips on that? Esp. with cohabitants?

Have we moved from household hints to relationship advice?

[Alan Balfour]

I'll only reply once (easy with that Submit button, Eugene). There was also a record label called 77, under Dobell's auspices (its biggest seller was the Dick Farina / Eric von Schmidt album from 1963, shortly being reissued on CD, by the way).

I veered this off topic 'cos I was musing about the photo of the album sleeves - which were in no apparent order - on the bag. Any chance of a photo of the bag?

Good thinking Batman in the mean time take a look here

http://www.wirz.de/music/77frm.htm

I'll scan one of the bags as best I am able and send a JPEG to Stefan to include at his web page.

[NormanD]

28 years after the event here is a London Evening Standard cutting telling us of the imminent closure of Dobell's, in December 1980

According to this report, the shop was first set up in 1886.

"Every jazz fan is born within the sound of Dobell's"

(Photo courtesy of Alan Balfour)

[NormanD]

I'm told that my house resembles a cross between a library and a newsagent!

But some of it is finding a good home here (copied from Jazz Beat magazine, October 1965). Thank you, Alan.


It says "opening soon". When did the doors open?

[Alan Balfour]

It says "opening soon". When did the doors open?

I've looked in the November and December issues of Jazz Beat but can't find any formal announcement, though in the December issue there's a Dobell's advert which gives both 77 & 75 in the address line. Likewise for Jazz Journal and Jazz Monthly, so I'm guessing maybe November? By the way, it was a loose leaf sheet which has my scribble in top right bearing the legend 'insert Jazz Beat Oct. 65'.