One Stop Records & Tapes

Name: Ben
Comment: Janice Long was asking about stores that listeners frequented, One Stop Record Shop in South Molton Street was one I did visit. My reply to Janice read: Used to come up to London on school hols and bought all my imports from here: Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk, circa 1968, Iron Butterfly, Freak Out – Mothers of Invention and too many others to list!

Name: Doug Kaye
Comment: I was a regular buyer at South Molton Street during the late 1960s when we had a restaurant called Mr Love at 23 Brook Street. Jimi Hendrix lived in the flat above and he also bought from there, I remember they used to get the imports in really fast and I got the first CSN LP, also Neil Young's first two, Poco Pickin' Up The Pieces, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, long before anyone else, plus many more, also used the one in Dean Street but this one was nearer.

Name: Mike Abbott
Comment: I recall vividly One Stop in South Molton Street, and The Phonograph in Soho Square. In the late 1960s/early 1970s both shops were regular haunts, hunting down US imports. I'd start with The Phonograph, then walk along Oxford Street to One Stop. Regular visits to both trailed off when Branson opened his import shop (over the shoe shop) in Oxford Street.

Name: Keef
Comment: I felt I was overcharged for Emerson Lake and Palmer's Pictures at an Exhibition. It was advertised in the NME to be released at a special low price, but One Stop charged me for it as a standard price LP. I'm not bitter, but if it was you Mr Baker, you owe me!
(20 October 2014)

Name: Fred S, Los Angeles
Comment: I stopped in to One Stop on South Molton Street at least once a week for years. Fantastic hushed, rather exclusive vibe. I remember looking longingly at imports of West Coast bands like Quicksilver, Jefferson Airplane, Zappa and Love. It was always a thrill to buy something there, and the counter staff - the hippest of the hip. I also bought tickets to all-nighters at The Lyceum there - an even bigger thrill.
(24 September 2014)

Comment: Also forgot to mention, John Peel was often seen buying stuff for his Sunday show in there, I remember Danny Baker working there, he was a bit abrupt, also a guy named Michael.
(10 June 2014)

Name: Jim Gleeson
Comment: I am proud to say... I worked there!
(15 May 2014)

Name: Miky Smith
Comment: I worked at the Richmond and then South Molton Street store, fond memories, unfortunately Harlequin had its grip on it by then and in 1976, if I remember rightly, the store closed... great times working there with Danny and Murray.
(28 April 2014)

Name: ddf
Comment: I was a frequent shopper at the South Molton Street store, and later in the larger Dean Street one. It was run by sober, dark-suited Nick, aided by Mick with his blond afro and paisley shirts. I remember listening to John Peel's show one day when he announced that he was able to play the new Beefheart album (Strictly Personal) because he and Nick had just got back from London Airport where they had been waiting together for the LP to clear customs. That's commitment.

And I have Mick to thank for saying to me "Listen to this, I think you'll like it." and sitting me in the booth to listen to Tim Buckley's Goodbye and Hello. I did like it; a lot.

Somehow, getting new music before it was out in the UK helped to make me feel a lot cooler than I actually was and having a store that specialised in stuff I liked made it more personal than the giant HMV store just yards away.
(24 March 2014)

Name: Alan Mc
Comment: I ran the Richmond store and also Dean Street... a fantastic time in music and my life... Richmond in the early 1970s could not have been better.
(5 June 2013)

Name: CC Rider
Comment: Very much part of the 'Richmond Scene' in the 1970s. A visit to One Stop before visiting L'Auberge on Richmond Bridge for a coffee was an essential for hipsters of all ages.
(27 May 2013)

Name: Rockdoc
Comment: Bought my copy of The Doors' and Velet Underground & Nico's first LPs at One Stop. They cost £3 15s each. The thrill that I got standing in the listening booth when I heard Back Door Man for the first time was like a drug rush. I've been chasing it ever since. I bought lots of US imports I could not really afford!
(25 March 2013)

Name: David MacAuslan
Comment: Alan Mc: I must have sort of taken over from you, because I ran the Richmond store for Harlequin.
(11 April 2015)

Name: Bob Pfeiffer
Comment: We used to travel from Leicester to London especially to visit One Stop and get imported albums. When we showed them to friends back home we became the hippest guys in Leicester! I can remember when three of us (me, Keith and Stu) were on our way to Cornwall for a holiday in 1968. We phoned One Stop from Paddington station to see if our imported Country Joe and the Fish albums had arrived and they had! We had barely an hour before our train departed but Keith volunteered to race across the city to get the albums so we could play them on our portable record player on Porthmeor beach, St Ives late at night surrounded by chicks. I'll never forget him racing along the platform, long hair flying, clutching our albums as the train started to leave. Wonderful days!

Name: David Lawson
Comment: This much-lauded small record shop was always one of my favourites. You can learn a lot about it by reading Danny Baker's Going to Sea in a Sieve as he worked there for quite a while but it always had a great selection and although I went there often there are two occasions I remember from going there.

One time Elton John was busy going through the racks of singles. It was about the time of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and he had the purple streak of dye in his hair that can be seen on that album cover.

Another time I was in there on a Saturday and I had gone to buy the Donovan A Gift From a Flower to a Garden box set of LPs which was then on import and as I queued to pay I glanced around at the people behind me and saw Michael Caine patiently waiting his turn holding Forever Changes by Love.
(21 April 2015)

Name: Martin Wickham.
Comment: I worked at One Stop Dean Street with Dave Crocker (RIP) and then Alan Mc and mini Alan used to love collecting Alan Mc's Triumph Spitfire from the car park with the roof down, blasting out Neil Young's Cowgirl in the Sand. Happy days! PS I must not forget Tom, Paul and Nick.
(19 May 2015)

Name: Ray Pearl
Comment: Ah, One Stop. Used to shop at old-school HMV around the corner until One Stop opened where you could buy all the imports you wanted and did do. Can't recall the names in there anymore, but recall an occasion when I wanted to buy an LP as a present for a music-obsessed mate of mine but being in a real hurry, didn't stop to listen to Peanut Butter Conspiracy is Spreading, but just because I liked the title - nearly 50 years later, my mate still criticizes my lack of taste that day!
(4 August 2015)

Name: Trauts Heytarl
Comment: Bought Trout Mask Replica there in 1969. It was their last import copy and quite battered - but I didn't care. Later when I worked in Oxford Street I spent many lunch hours in there. On one visit they played La Grange by ZZ Top. Couldn't believe my ears. Still love it. Thanks to all involved.
(16 March 2016)

Name: Bruce Findlay
Comment: One Stop was owned by the wonderful Island Records. Two legends of the British music scene in the 1960s.

Name: Max Whitaker
Comment: ! worked there for a year doing the mailouts and imports in an office above a shop a few doors down South Molton Street from the diminutive shop - before Chris (Blackwell) hired me in April 1970 to work in Island's new studios in Basing Street - amazing memories -I fear Mike Ashwell is no longer around and we have lost Rog Keatley who mainly ran One Stop then, but Nick & Simon Goodman are still knockin'/rockin' in LA , I think - small but hugely influential record shop, and many UK releases of West Coast bands/artists as well as other Stateside/progressive music got released as a result of O-S-R's imports - e.g. Zappa, CSN, Airplane, Richie Havens, etc... London was like a village then so we knew/saw many of the rock and folk crowd who came regularly to check our stock out.
(25 July 2016).

Name: Alan McLachlan
Comment: One Stop Records was started by Mike Ashwell and Brian Gatland.

Great to know that so many people have such happy memories of it.
(29 July 2016)

Name: Robert Brown
Comment: I used to go weekly to One Stop Records in the late 1960s. A great place to go to buy imports. I remember buying Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and Spooky Two. I then used to walk on down to Dobell's, another great music shop in Charing Cross Road. Those were the days.
(14 August 2016)

Name: Richard Newman
Comment: One Stop Records was my local shop and I worked there for a bit. The other shop in Richmond was Potters Music Shop. I remember Mike Ashwell and Brian Gatland, along with Trevor and of course Alan McLachlan. One Stop Richmond was a very exciting place to be in those days and for me an education.
(27 October 2016)

Comment: Record collector come up: in 1974, I was working in Chris Blackwell's office at Island Records in London. One day, A&R man Richard Williams phoned to say the six record stores Blackwell owned (called One Stop I think) were closing down. And the shop in Richmond was available for us to go cherry-pick a few records.

Once there, I was directed to the basement by the store's manager. It seemed Blackwell was using the basement to store dead stock of unsold Island 45s from the 1960s. There were 'bow ties' everywhere. That was the name given to a simple label design which was white with a bow tie-shaped dash of red in the centre. There were many Ska and Rocksteady titles by Lee Perry, Bob Marley, Desmond Dekker, the Skatalites, Derek & Patsy, Owen Gray, etc. Each title would be a box of 25.

I asked the manager how much the 45s were and his reply was: "You work for Island don't you? Take all you want." Joyous words! But I was on foot, so I had to be strategic in how many boxes I took. (For some reason, a taxi was out of the question, I had traveled by train.) Since I am a huge fan of Van Morrison's band Them, I copped four boxes (100 all together) of the Belfast Gipsies' Gloria's Dream which featured ex-Them members and was produced by Kim Fowley. Then I pulled various Jamaican titles and filled up at least four more boxes. I don't know how many 45s I rescued that day, but when I walked, my arms were fully extended below my waist and I could barely see over the top box.
(28 November 2016)

Name: Jim Honeywood
Comment: I was a 'once-a-week visitor' too to One Stop. Bought my Jeff Beck and John Fahey's on import. American album covers always more substantial than English - more like what you get these days with the new vinyls. I remember seeing the Ramones' first album cover in the window and being middle shocked! Great times!
(11 April 2017)

Name: Pete Limmer
Comment: Great to find this site, I am now 68 but remember coming in from Woodford with my friend Ray, having listened to Mr Peel's Perfumed Garden on Radio Caroline (or London) and then getting my hands on Love/Doors/Country Joe/Beefy/Misunderstood/Spider John Koerner and others - we felt special, no one else had these records, just us - wow, if only we had something similar today but - "YouTube" - well!!!

I didn't realise Chris Blackwell owned One Stop - no matter, I think he did a good job in British musical tastes. I also managed to get to quite a lot of the Saville Theatre Concerts as well as most of the Hyde Park gigs - but I still fondly remember One Stop as the place to follow up a week's late-night listening to John Peel.

Many years later I managed to get myself in to Maida Vale Studios (BBC) usually on Thursdays, to record artists for Radio 1/Radio 2 evening shows (Sadly not John Peel) but many good bands came through - China Crisis/Marc Almond/Cocteau Twins/Ukelele Orchestra of GB/ Aswad/Freur (now Underworld)/Captain Sensible and the list goes on - how lucky to have been born when I was and all this went on around us.
(28 July 2017)

Name: Al Turner
Comment: I worked at One Stop, with Ian, John, Murray - great days.
(2021

Name: Keith Turner
Comment: I was looking for the record shop near New Bond Street where I used to buy what they called 'West Coast Music'. This was in the late sixties, early seventies. It was a very small shop, and I do not remember it having a double front, however I'm sure it was called One Stop Records. So was the shop originally nearer New Bond Street than the South Molton Street one?
(2019)

Name: Bev
Comment: Hello, Brian Gatland is my uncle and I also had the honour of knowing Mike Ashwell.

It's so lovely to see all your lovely comments and I will definitely being sharing them with him when I next see him. He has many fond memories and stories to tell of One Stop Records.
(2019)

Name: Alan McLachlan
Comment: Hi Bev X, I just saw your comments, I would love to hear from BG or any others with memories of the great One Stop Records... I ran both the Richmond and Dean Street stores during the best time in music... Brian was great to work with and a perfect introduction to my life in the music business.
(2021)

Name: Geoff Pollock
Comment: Oh my goodness! I am lying in bed looking at street view (Google Maps) of Dean Street to see what it looks like now compared to when I worked at One Stop Records in 1973/74. Then out of curiosity I googled One Stop Records and found this site. Not only a photo or two of the Dean Street branch but one of Musicland in Berwick Street where I worked from 1972/73. Happy hazy days - Hey ho hum!
(2022)

Name: Ian Barnett
Comment: I use to go to One Stop in London, amazing shop.
Trying to find out if an Alex Switzer worked there at some point.
We both lived in Willesden Green.
​(2022)

Name: David Pitfield
Comment: My best friend Roger Jeatkey worked at South Molton Street in the late 1960s. I bought many records there and swapped mono Beatles albums for stereo. Peter Sellers bought records there.
​(2022)

Name: Mike Harlequin
Comment: In summer 1976 they moved me out to Richmond and while we waited for the new store in George Street to open I had to clear out the old shop a few hundred yards down the road. It had been a One Stop shop and before that was owned by Island Records who had left hundreds of boxes of Sue/Island label singles there to rot.

There were loads of boxes of early Bob Marley & The Wailers singles and after a few hours of carrying heavy boxes up the stairs I decided to start using them as frisbees, smashing them against the wall. Yes, I know - I've had sleepless nights thinking about it. And to make matters worse those singles all sell for top dollar these days. Ugh!

Anyway, they were fun times. From head office I remember the manager Jim and a drummer from Wembley called Stu. From Richmond I remember the manager David, who has already posted above, and the former manager who was a big Rolling Stones fan like me. I've forgotten his name. There was also a great lady there called Lyndsey.

Name: David MacAuslan
Comment: I used to manage the Richmond branch. Classical was downstairs, with rock above. I imported Born To Run and the first Pavlov's Dog albums; they sold very well. He was very tolerant when I massively over-ordered on the import of Santana's triple Lotus album. I got on well with Laurie Krieger, and used to go round the branches with him in his pale blue Rolls Royce. Great times!