Art Nash

A shop that had a wide stock or everything espcailly American imports and was frequented a lot by Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones) in the early 60T's. This is just one of many shop the Stones are linked to as customers.

To see a film clip of the shop from 1964

Art Nash opened c.1955 and intitally was much frequented by Jazz fans,having a large stock of Jazz EP's and L.P.'s. I've come across a few Vogue Jazz EP's from the mid-50's(Gerry Mulligan,MJQ etc.) with Art Nash's stamp on the back.The shop's window display of L.P.'s was always popular-especially as it was right next to the 75 bus stop-and young bus queue-rs could pass the time perusing the covers of the latest albums while waiting.By the time I started buying records in earnest in the late 70's,they were more of a musical instrument shop(a number of record shops sold instruments too) Their stock of records was uninspiring&limited-just the Top 40 singles and Top 20 albums,along with the ubiquitous Easy Listening section.I don't recall every buying a record from there,in fact,although I did buy my first-and last-electric guitar from there when I was 13 or 14.Art Nash closed down in July 2000 . Comment: Michael Viner

The owner was a very heavy smoker and not very pleasant, at least, he wasn't towards me anyway LOL. Had a lot of mid priced guitars. The shop was always filled with cigarette smoke. I used to frequent to shop in the mid-late 1990s. I realise though that the shop was a pivotal force on the South London music scene in the 1950s-1960s. I could tell from the postcards and pics on the wall. Comment: Peter Lee

(June 28, 2014) Barbara Spice said:I grew up in Penge and well remember buying my first record and endless sheet music from Art Nash s shop, a saturday morning "must visit",, unfortunately and sadly I left Penge in 1963... seems like a great mistake now.....

(Aug 1, 2012) Neil Partrick said:This picture (from 12 years ago as it closed down?) suggests that it was/has become a second hand car show room! I share your memory of it from the late 70s. I last visited it in 1976 and it was a few albums ans sheet music, but mostly, very attractive, instruments.

(Mar 15, 2012) Simon Lloyd said:I grew up in Penge in the 60s and I remember speaking to Bill Wyman outside Art Nash in about 1965 (I was 10). I used to buy records and sheet music there and I bought my first little guitar amplifier there. I remember there was an old Vox AC30 for people to try out electric guitars. It would be worth a fortune now.

(Feb 20, 2012) jd said:The owner had a very nice daughter back in the '60's.

(March 1st, 2015) I am the grandson of Arthur Nash and I lived above the shop in the 1960's. I worked in the shop when my grandfather had died. He was not a very nice man and when he was alive my sister and I had to call him Uncle. He didn't have a daughter only two sons, who he disinherited. He was a horrible git and I have never been back to the place since I left London 33 years ago. Comment: Howard Charman Nee Nash


( March 8, 2016) While watching a recently-transferred colour cine film to VHS video with my brother-in-law, some local beat groups playing on a stage in the open air at the New Addington Carnival in the early 1960’s caught my eye. One of the groups I recognised as the Martin Jae Five (aka Group X) from photos I had seen in a recently published book called ‘Rockin’ and Around Croydon’ by Chris Groom (published by Wombeat in August 1998). I had read in the book that Mick Hack, the lead guitarist, later became a record company sales rep, who called on Art Nash in Penge. The people who owned it were retiring at the time and Mick and his brother bought the shop. I telephoned Mick at the shop and arranged to deliver him a copy of the VHS tape. He was still in touch with the remaining members of the group, including Martin Jae (whose real name is Martin Nighy, brother of actor Bill Nighy). Before I left I had a browse through their CD racks and bought one by ‘The Flames’.

The chapters on Martin Nighy and Mick Hack in Chris Groom’s book make fascinating reading. They formed the group while they were all employed by Dees (a Ford motor dealership in South Croydon), along with Dave Newton, who later worked at Potters Music Shop in Croydon. Jeff Beck worked at South Croydon Motors just down the road. They played gigs above the Pyramid record shop in Broad Green, Croydon and the Co-Op Hall at Peckham (where they played alternate weeks with the Dave Clark Five). What crazy times the sixties were! Dave Harwood.
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Howard Charman, yours 1/3/2015 Believe he had a son, Keith. A good friend of mine for many years.
Name
Brian Rollinson

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I was a teacher at the Royston ballroom run by Frank and Peggy Spencer. So was my job to go to Art Nash for all the new records every week. Have to say l always found Art very helpful.l also used to see Bill Wyman there. Crystal his wife used to come to the Ballroom for lessons. Once the Royston closed. My husband and l opened our own studio, and Crystal would come to our classes and have private lesson with my husband Sammy Harris. I have very fond memories of both Art and Crystal Nash.
Name
Ann Harris
(2020)

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I used to visit Art Nash regularly in the sixties. I was a member of the Steal Drivers Skiffle Group and the Yarg Nibor Spasm Band and we used to buy records and musical instruments there. I bought my first banjo there and our base player bought an Art Nash two stringed base. There were several special Art Nash instruments. One I had and for years I have looked for another was a small circular guitar. It was called a SKIFFLE JO. I long to find another. I used it in the 70s when I was a member of the Taverners and later the Four Square Circle and people who saw us at the Railway Tavern inCatford were always fascinated by the skiffle jo which the band called 'Robin on his funny thing'
Art Nash was just down the road from where I went to school; Beckenham and Penge Gramar schoo. It was a school that produced lots of fine skifflers and rockers, also some excellent jazz musicians.
Name
Robin Gray
(2020)

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I worked in Art Nash for a while after I left Hawes Down school, West Wickham in 1969.I remember sitting in a small side room at the back of the shop, on the left, with a man and a pot of really smelly hide glue, putting thick cardboard covers together.
Name
Peter Goodchild
(2021)

Re: Cossack Melodies

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Post by felixdcatuk » Tue Jan 26, 2010 5:02 pm

Great to find this on the net, My Uncle Mick Hack was the lead guitarist with Martin Jae and the Hi - 5 & i agree the track should have been a hit, My Uncle passed away some years ago now but my dad confirms that John Skelley was indeed the organist but on the T.V. show - Thank your lucky stars i think it was the keyboard was mimed by Martin Jae as he was a vocalist on an instrumental track ( not very fair though ). After the band split up my uncle played in a group called the casual 4 for a while and they did record an album but never got far with it but he loved his music and bought the Art Nash music shop in Penge where he worked and played for many years as selling instruments and guitar strings etc meant he got to spend his time amoungst fellow musicians

Re: Cossack Melodies

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Post by Morphyous » Thu Feb 04, 2010 2:27 pm

felixdcatuk wrote:Great to find this on the net, My Uncle Mick Hack was the lead guitarist with Martin Jae and the Hi - 5 & i agree the track should have been a hit, My Uncle passed away some years ago now but my dad confirms that John Skelley was indeed the organist but on the T.V. show - Thank your lucky stars i think it was the keyboard was mimed by Martin Jae as he was a vocalist on an instrumental track ( not very fair though ). After the band split up my uncle played in a group called the casual 4 for a while and they did record an album but never got far with it but he loved his music and bought the Art Nash music shop in Penge where he worked and played for many years as selling instruments and guitar strings etc meant he got to spend his time amoungst fellow musicians.

Thank you for adding some detail to this story. Your Uncle Mick was a very good guitarist and had a great sound.
I very much appreciate you confirming my Dad as the keyboard player, it would have been a hard one to prove!
I was a musician in South London and went to your uncles shop a few times for strings etc but I didn't know he was in Group X, pity i would have liked to chat to him. all the very best John Skelley jnr

I hope you don't mind me adding the e-mail you sent me, which i received today. It is so full of detail and i'm sure it would be of interest to to the forum and shed light on this track.

"Hi there! Mick Hack (more often known as Mike to eveyone) was my brother, and heplayed lead guitar on the record. I remember when Mick came back frommaking the recording and he told me that the impressario Tito Burns who wasinvolved with it all came to the studio on the night they recoreded itafter just watching a TV programme that was popular at the time called "TheNaked City". At the end of every show a voice said "There are 8 millionstories in the Naked City and this has ben one of them". Mick said thatTito then proposed that the title for the record should be "There are 8million Cossack Melodies and this is one of them". So that is how it cameto be named do oddly. When they appeared on Thank Your Lucky Stars on ITV the host Brian Matthewsintroduced it saying that it must be one of the longest titles for a recordbut yet one of the shortest names for a group, i.e. Group X. I seem to remember the "big" name on the show that Saturday was Mark Wynter("Venus in Blue Jeans"). On the show 'Group X' all wore the high neck 'cossack' shirts. Martin Jae(the singer in the band) was put on the organ for the show. He could notplay the organ but it didn't matter as they were miming to the record whichwas the normal practise in those days). Radio Luxembourg plugged it heavily, especially for the week or so leadingup to it's release date. They regularly said that "a great new wall ofsound is approaching, by Group X" to which someone would say "who is it?who is it? and the reply was that it would all be revealed and played forthe first time on Friday night at 9pm, so it got a fair bit of promotion. From what I remember the band only got a 'session fee' for making therecord, and no royalties as I think they were a bit naive at the time andin any case understandably probably had 'stars in their eyes'. The band subsequently released Roti Caliope which was Fleur de Lys(Beethoven) with a beat etc. The record would probably have done a lotbetter but it did not get the 'air time' as I understood from Mick that theBBC refused to play it as it was messing around with a classicalcomposition. The band were well known especially arounfd South London, but they wereknown as Martin Jae and the Hi-Five and later as the Martin Jae Five. Theywon the National Beat Contest under that name which was televised live. Theband in 2nd place were Glenn Athens & the Trojans and I am pretty sure thatthey then became Dave Dee, Dosy, Beaky Mick & Titch (not absolutely surethough?) I went to the Lyceum in London to watch the contest, and I remember JimmySaville was one of the judges. The MJ5 won £1,000 and a recording deal. I have a great publication all about Group X, which is the 'PipeLine'Instrumental Review, which is dated Autumn 1998 (issue no. 41) Inspired by Mick who taught me to play guitar when I was a young lad backin the 50's I also formed a group in the mid-60's and we played around theSouth London area, mainly in the Beckenham/Penge district. We were called'The Kontaks' but never reached the heights achieved by Mick and his band.I still have a faded press cutting from winning the 'Disc-a-Beat' contestat the Silver Blades Ice Rink in Streatham , where we are pictured with oneof the judges (National Ballroom Queen', Nannette Slack) I seem to rememberone of the other judges was Marty Wilde's lead guitarist? (happy days). I hope you found the above of interest and if you would like any moreinformation please let me know. Regards,Alan Hack