Hit Man Records
Gilles Peterson, Snowboy where customers here. Stan and Clive, aka the boys behind Hitman Records was a record shop originally located in Hammersmith then moved to 2 Lexington Street, London W1, which became even more well known when Horizon Radio started to use the address so listeners could send in their requests via the post. Horizon Radio rose to became London's most succesful non licensed 24/7 radio station. Hitman Records backed Horizon Radio from the early days by providing the latest 12'' vinyls and import LP's from the USA and accross the world. Hitman Records also sold a lot of Latin/Salsa LP's. Which brings me to a Top 10 chart that the record shop compiled based on sales and recommondations from the shop December 1985. Here are two tracks (random picks from myself) from each of the LP's in this chart - courtesy of Hitman Records. Enjoy! Note! Artist & Song Titles can be found in the comment selection because when I actually add the song titles and artist names in the description of this video then the FULL video is BLOCKED WORLDWIDE!
The first few clubs to play Latin American music in London were El Cantino, Sol y Sombra and Bass Clef Jazz Club. John Armstrong took up residency at the latter in 1984. Together, with Sol y Sombra’s Dave Hucker, he was one of the first to hit upon a mix of Latin, Brazilian and African music which was much loved by the growing Latin and African community in the capital.
Armstrong would get his records from well-known record-buying spots such as Berwick Street Market, where vinyl had been smuggled in from New York and France, and Hitman Records, which was a must for Latin music fans. Armstrong also got them from a number he’d been given by a local record shop, as he recalls: “I ring this guy called Megatron Import/Export, it’s a phone number in Crawley, and he says, ‘What do you want?’, and I say: ‘I’m interested in records’, and he says, ‘Oh yeah, well my main business is importing motor parts to Brazil’. I suppose the exchange rate was so bad he used to take Jaguar spares and bring back records, and sell them to HMV and so on…
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