Ebony Sounds

Name: Jim Wilson
Comment: Ebony Sounds ran from 1974/5 until 1980/81 and sold all genres of music with an upstairs mail order section selling soul. We put out regular soul lists and had a stock of over 75,000 soul imports in our upstairs warehouse.

We had customers like Ian Levine, John Manship, Randy Couzins etc., all well-known names on the Northern Soul scene. In the shop we had thousands of second-hand 45s & albums.

Steve Bryant (another well known name on the soul scene at that time) used to help out in the shop on Saturdays. We had to move out in the 1980s when the council allowed a property company to buy the premises to build an office block - which never actually happened.

The shop is still there today, as a wine bar.

Name: Tony Swettenham
Comment: I remember Ebony Sounds very well, I used to go there when I was a kid, from early 1978 until shortly before the shop closed. I used to look forward to taking my pocket money and picking up a couple of 1960s/70s 45s and the odd LP at the weekends! There was also Roach's around the corner, which seemed to have tons of racks of long-unsold early 1970s prog. If I remember correctly they closed around the same time.

(Oct 10, 2014) Mark Griffiths said:If I have it right Jim, you later had a shop in Chingford Mount Road next to a florists? I used to go in and chat to you quite often when I lived up there, and I still make the occasional purchase from your eBay listings.