Contempo
Set up by John Abby ( Blues & Soul) was the place to get your soul imports. Frequented by Robert Elms and Loyd Bradley.
Leg it over the road to Hanway Street, a charismatic, piss-smelling dogleg alley, where up the stairs of an unmarked doorway was Contempo. Contempo Records was the epicentre of the London black music world in 1976, entirely contained in a room about eight feet square above a Spanish bar with an Irish name, in a forgotten street. On Friday afternoons it was the only place to buy the records the DJs had been spinning over the road at Crackers. So punters literally queued up the stairs, shouting out names of songs and artists, or listening intently to the sides which had arrived in crates from the States that day, deciding whether that was the one to invest in'. Robert Elms The Way We Wore
( March 18, 2016) It was like the stock exchange or an auction. Someone would spin the new singles and if you wanted one you waved and then either paid or that single was added to your pile and when people had stopped waving that disc came off and the new one went on and the process was repeated. My favourite bought from there - Timmy Thomas Why Can't We Live Together on Glades. Coincidentally a few days after purchasing this disc I saw Timmy Thomas and his manager in HMV Oxford Street. Small world. Comment: Truats Heytarl.
Leg it over the road to Hanway Street, a charismatic, piss-smelling dogleg alley, where up the stairs of an unmarked doorway was Contempo. Contempo Records was the epicentre of the London black music world in 1976, entirely contained in a room about eight feet square above a Spanish bar with an Irish name, in a forgotten street. On Friday afternoons it was the only place to buy the records the DJs had been spinning over the road at Crackers. So punters literally queued up the stairs, shouting out names of songs and artists, or listening intently to the sides which had arrived in crates from the States that day, deciding whether that was the one to invest in'. Robert Elms The Way We Wore
( March 18, 2016) It was like the stock exchange or an auction. Someone would spin the new singles and if you wanted one you waved and then either paid or that single was added to your pile and when people had stopped waving that disc came off and the new one went on and the process was repeated. My favourite bought from there - Timmy Thomas Why Can't We Live Together on Glades. Coincidentally a few days after purchasing this disc I saw Timmy Thomas and his manager in HMV Oxford Street. Small world. Comment: Truats Heytarl.
Bag courtesy of Steve Richards
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