Vintage Vinyl

A regular look at record shops from the past No 12: Robinson’s, Manchester

Robinson’s, on the Manchester/salford border, was owned by Edna and Arthur Robinson. The shop bulged with vinyl records. They also ran a wholesale business (they were the UK agents for the US Starday rockabilly/country label), a singles bar with lots of US soul imports and a café on the premises.

The Robinsons started record retailing in 1960. The business grew (in partnership with one Hector Gedhall) to include record shops with names like the Disc Centre and Music Box throughout the north of England. When the partnership with Gedhall ended in the late 70s, Edna and Arthur focused on three Robinson’s Record shops including their Blackfriars Street emporium.they imported albums and records, making regular visits to warehouses in New Jersey/long Island where deletions, cut-outs and budget albums were plentiful.

Around that time I was building a half-decent blues collection on a limited budget. Robinson’s was well-stocked with deleted and budget blues and R&B albums, including those on the United/kent labels from Los Angeles. I bought budget albums by BB King, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Lowell Fulson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Johnny Otis, compiled from Modern, RPM, Crown and Kent masters, and the 12 Anthology Of The Blues albums crammed with rarities and unissued sides.

Over two floors, Robinson’s had racks of rock, soul, reggae, country, jazz, soundtracks and easy listening cut-outs and deletions. They also had a house rule that all bags had to be handed in on entering the store. In its heyday, Robinson’s produced duplicated sales lists, sold imported and rare 45s, and had customers worldwide who wrote in looking for hard-to-find records.

In his autobiography, Morrissey recalled: “Robinson’s offered a vast warehouse of extraordinary stock – pristine pressings lovingly racked and dazzlingly stacked, tearfully beyond my budget.”

In a posting on the Manchester Digital Music Archive, Arthur Robinson said that in the early 80s: “We realised that our record business was about to come to an end, what with the big changes in the music industry, punk in England, gospel in America. And, of course, the major factor was that of the dollar dropping so far against the English pound, it just made it impossible for us to carry on.” Instead, they went into selling DIY goods and home furnishings from the same location.

They sold their record stock to a London business associate and eventually moved to New Zealand. The new owner in turn sold the record business to a long-standing ex-robinson’s employee who kept things going until she retired.

Tony Burke

If you know of an unsung music venue or defunct record shop, send 300-400 words, with a venue pic or scanned memorabilia, to rc.content@metropolis.co.uk