I bought my first records in 1959, for my 11th birthday – Coasters, Ricky Nelson, the Everlys and Lonnie Donegan. I’ve always had a great interest in American music in most forms, and today my collection embraces R&B, rock’n’roll, old time country, bluegrass, blues, Cajun, jug bands, singer-songwriters, US 50s teen pop….I have a large assembly of autoharp recordings spread over three-quarters of a century, as that’s the instrument with which I make a living, a hobby which became a profession. There are also alot of interesting sub-genres within record collecting which fascinate me - for example, death discs, reply records, shockrock(horror discs),appalling B-sides, record label histories, demonstration discs. I don’t have alot of British music, although I don’t exclude it on principle – I love some of those old Britpop instrumentals, for instance, the Flee-Rekkers, Nero & the Gladiators, Night of the Vampire by the Moontrekkers, in the days before it occurred to British groups to sing. I’m afraid I’m one of those dinosaurs who were immune to the British beat boom of the 60s. I consider that was an abberation for which I’ve been apologising to my American friends ever since! I was so into the USA originals by 1963 that I really couldn’t understand what was happening. I still get annoyed even today when I hear the UK cover versions of I’m Into Something Good, Just One Look, I Can’t Let Go, Go Now, Green Green Grass of Home and the rest!

My contemporaries at Grammar school were all buying the Fourmost and the Swinging Blue Jeans while I had Arthur Alexander, Ray Charles, Solomon Burke and Eddie Cochran inked on my school haversack! I tolerated the Beatles because of what they did for Carl Perkins. Most of my record-buying accomplices went to other schools or were three years older than I. I regard myself very much as a child of the ’50s. I missed a lot of the 70s/80s/90s music completely through career commitments and disinterest in a lot of what was going on, although I admit a liking for Dire Straits and fellow Teessider Chris Rea – Chris’s Dad used to run an ice cream parlour on Linthorpe Road in Middlesbrough in the 50s and 60s, which we’d often visit before a ‘Boro football match just up the street. The only modern music that really interests me is the American acoustic scene of which I’ve been a part, although I admire some of the fine artists frequenting the UK folk scene these days – Dougie MacLean, Kate Rusby, Show of Hands and the Poozies, for example. But when folk try to pigeon-hole me on my musical interests, I try to avoid being pinned down. So if people say “What kind of music do you like/play?” I simply reply “Tunes and songs, mostly!” Then if they need clarification, I can say “The songs have lyrics, the tunes don’t!” Tunes and songs, that pretty well covers it.

I think eclecticism is important, particularly if you’re in education. If music has energy, passion, feeling, interesting lyrics and strong vocal harmony, I’m usually good with it, in most genres .I truly believe these elements are more important than technical wizardry. I love high-quality bluegrass but I’m far more interested in the intensity of the harmony singing than in the instrumental pyrotechnics of the 5-string banjo. It has to touch me, emotionally, and a good tune will always do that. Modern jazz and opera doesn't connect with me at all, although some trad jazz is fun and I do find the concept of people singing AT each other in loud voices with fancy dress vaguely amusing! A lot of the music I’ve loved over the years is imperfect, flawed. I loved it in the old days when you had novelty records like The Laughing Policeman, Mr.Bass Man and Goodness Gracious Me, ‘B’sides of 45s which were so bad they were brilliant, times when you might find an Ivory Joe Hunter 45 in a local junkshop for two bob, the days when Sam Phillips at Sun used to say “Just get out there and pick, boys – we’ll find the record when we get through!” But things got rather too serious over the years as people tried to make flawless perfect records under stupid group names for the pop market and the engineer became the key person in the studio. A lot of the fun went out of the window, things became too serious. Let’s not forget fun. That’s what I try to put over in my concerts for children.

It’s actually not huge. I’m not in the Hugh McCallum/Bob Solly league – if they are the Premier League of record collectors, then I guess I’m Crewe Alexandra! I’d say there’s about three thousand discs, of which about 1100 are albums. But I’ve parted with at least that many in swaps, clearouts and selling off and trading duplications over the years – I’m pretty choosy about what I keep. Condition is variable – I used to stick cuttings on LP covers and inscribe sleeves with a grading system when I was young but I don’t do that anymore. Therefore there are many records out there knocking about the country in people’s collections bearing the inscription ‘Fendisk’ on them. I still collect choice blues, country and R&B/R&R 78s, and I love EPs – I have about 350 of them, all good stuff – Larry Williams, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Cochran. I have a complete set of Ray Charles UK EP issues and also all sixteen volumes of the RCA Country Guitar series.

I’ve always loved the music produced by the successful independents - Sun, Chess, Atlantic, Specialty, Imperial, Roulette, King, and some of the smaller ones such as Minit, Crest and Big Top. I’m a big enthusiast for the County label, based in Floyd, Virginia, which has been specialising in reissues of old time country from old 78s since the late 60s, and has put out a sales newsletter with reviews ever since. Another pet interest is jews harp recordings, especially on 78. One of my other passions is company sleeves for 45s and 78s, especially American labels – this is one of my little projects when on USA work. I love to see a single in its correct cover. You can imagine that finding a sleeve for tiny labels like Highland, Johnson or Zephyr is not easy! My favourite US company sleeve was from End Records, which featured two ‘ends’ of a dog cut in half across the cover!

I have purpose-built shelving erected at one end of the living room, with the discs divided into subject/artist sections where I can find them easily. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of my record collection being a display exhibit, a conversation piece, easily accessible. I love records as aesthetic presences in the house, be it a London American tri-centre single, a Regal-Zonophone 78, an original album on US Herald or Savoy – they are pieces of art as much as a fine painting or an antique jug – as much for looking at, discussing and handling as playing. Be it a Bluebird country pre-war issue, a Parlophone UK EP in pristine cover, a Starday bluegrass album, they have a unique beauty of their own. I’ve always taken pride in the collection – they reflect me in so many ways, plus they source my profession – I’m always delving into it for good songs and tunes to feature in my own performances. I do a lot of family concerts in schools tied in with a day’s music visit, and the parents(and grandparents!) of the kids really enjoy hearing 50s oldies and me borrowing quips in my stage patter from old Stan Freeberg discs!

I use those PVC plastic covers from Covers 33 in Halifax to keep the records and sleeves protected. I also love those old 78 albums which can house up to ten 78s in a binder – I buy these very cheaply and customise them by putting, say, five Drifters Atlantics in one then adding Drifters cuttings and photos to the front and back. I’m very creative, sometimes! I also saw an idea I liked in an oldies store in Portland, Oregon, using old LPs as category dividers. I adapted this with anonymous 12 inch discs which I’d cut in half and mount on stiff card with a portion protruding from the end of a section showing photos and typed titles for easy recognition. I never have to look for a record for very long.

I don’t have many mega-rarities, just for the sake of it! I can’t take them with me at the end, after all! I’d rather have the money than feel vulnerable with a full set of Presley Suns. I guess that attitude keeps me out of the collectors Premier League too? I have most of the original London LPs of favourites like Fats, Jerry Lee, Perkins, Cochran, Little Richard, and many of the original EPs , 45s and 78s too, most of which I’ve had since that 1959-66 period in which I did most of really avid collecting as a youngster.

During the 70s as I grew into that marriage/career/mortgage period I drifted away from record collecting as a major interest, although I did still bring a fair number of records back from USA trips. But I did notice for awhile that I seemed to derive a bigger blast from going into a garden centre than a record store! Then in about 1982 when I was a headteacher in Kent I went to a local record fair I saw advertised in the paper and discovered that a lot of my old records were starting to be worth quite a lot! But rather than start selling them off, I just couldn’t do it, it started me off again on records as a serious interest and I’ve since returned to it with a vengeance! I came out of that Maidstone fair with a Big Bopper Mercury EP for £4 that I’d missed years before (I think it’s worth about £150 now!) and replaced my old worn-out, vandalised Rock Around the Clock LP with a mint pristine copy.

But, real rarities, let’s see – I have a copy of I’m A Fool to Care by Joe Barry on Gin, the orginal minor label issue before it was picked up by Mercury. There’s Completely Sweet by Eddie Cochran on 78, Little Richard’s very first US 78 for Specialty(picked up at a flea market for 50c!), several Sun originals autographed by Jerry Lee and Johnny Cash when I met them in the 60s, Earth Angel on a 78 by the Penguins. I guess the Chuck Willis EP on Fontana is about as rare as I get. Oh, and I found a copy of the great Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs Stay LP on Herald in someone’s attic in North Carolina – it’s very scarce, and they just let me take it!

Finding that Stay album! Maybe, on reflection, standing at a booth at a music festival in the USA and hearing a banjo player of national repute asking “Have you got Mike Fenton’s new album?” This would have been about 1985, just after my first LP, My Privilege, had been released by Heritage Records. The title song was a tribute song to the Carter Family of Scott County, Virginia, the first family of old time country music.

And there was an occasion as a teenager when I found a copy of John Zacherle’s classic horror disc Dinner With Drac for a shilling & sixpence in a Stockton-on-Tees junkshop, it’d be 1966, then just a few days later my friend Bill Mann persuaded me to flog it to him for a massive twelve shillings! I was still at school, I needed the money, but within a month, I’d found another copy for a shilling! By the time you read this I hope to have met Mr Zacherle in Manhattan and interviewed him for my column in Now Dig This magazine. I’ll get my junkshop copy of the record autographed at the same time!

Ooh my soul! I’d have to answer that in categories. I think the greatest rock’n’roll double-sider ever was Larry Williams doing Dizzy Miss Lizzy/Slow Down - my US Specialty copy has a picture sleeve, and it's such a classic I have UK 78 and 45 issues as well, not to mention re-issues! The best r&r song never issued at the time would have to be Put Your Cat Clothes On by Carl Perkins at Sun. I’ve always loved Jerry Lee Lewis’s version of You Win Again as a great country record, and in that genre I’ve always held I Heard The Bluebirds Sing by the Browns in very high esteem. An overall great favourite since 1961 has been Angel Baby by Rosie & The Originals, a favourite of many people including John Lennon – it’s a totally shambolic record but with an irresistible charm of its own. I did discover Rosie in New Mexico and got to speak to her on the phone a couple of years ago.

My favourite melodies – an Irish tribute tune by 17th Century harper Turlough O’Carolan, Planxty Fanny Power, a Scottish pipes lament called The Flight of the Eaglets, a great old tune called Fisher’s Hornpipe, and Sleepwalk by Santo & Johnny! For vocal harmony, one of my real loves, you don’t get much better than So Sad by the Everly Brothers. In US vocal group music I adore Sincerely by the Moonglows and my favourite chant from an old group disc that I haven’t been able to get out of my head in 40 years is the memorable “Dum dooby-dum woh-oh” hook from the Tokens’ Tonight I Fell In Love. My best-loved bluegrass record is Across the Shining River by Bill Clifton, one of my mentors, and a top blues choice would be a toss-up between Midnight Hour Blues by Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell and How You’ve Changed by Chuck Berry. Favourite LP? The Eddie Cochran Memorial Album, with the Carl Perkins Dance Album running it close! Two great favourite songs from the 50s that I often include in my own performances are Lonesome Town and Since I Met You Baby.

In more modern music, I think From A Distance by Nanci Griffith is a great record, one of those ‘anthems for mankind’ songs that really grabbed me when I first heard her do it live on stage – when I first acquired the record I played it all day! Modern English folk? I love The Blue Cockade by Show of Hands, they’re just brilliant..…classical - Handel’s Royal Fireworks..…I could go on…..

I’ve no actual plan as such. I read the RC lists and occasionally move for something. I do love to go the occasional fair, such as the big one they used to have at NEC, and my favourite is the one they have in Bristol Temple Meads in the old Brunel GWR station with the engineer’s picture looking down on the proceedings. Much as I love records, though, I usually find that I’m ‘vinyled-out’ after about two hours! Oh, I get a great thrill going to USA oldies shops and flea-markets. My best flea-market haul was in Lexington, North Carolina, a couple of years ago, when a stall selling electrical goods had just ten 78s, and they were all R&B gems to die for in great condition – the Penguins, Ruth Brown, the Falcons, Drifters, Chuck Willis, Little Richard, Roy Hamilton, all at 50c each! It’s great to know that it’s still possible to find bargains, a reminder of teenage days combing Teesside junkshops in the 60s!

Whenever I brought 78s back from the USA, I’d always take as many as I could in cabin on the aeroplane with me in a sturdy box, and wedge them between my legs and the seat! I also have a habit of going through people’s old records when visiting – if they tell you they have old discs that are stashed away in a loft or cupboard with no facilities for playing them that is always a promising sign, because in that situation they’re not likely to be all that bothered about keeping them. Like with the Maurice Williams LP I mentioned.

Basically just US and UK issues, although where Eddie Cochran is concerned I do branch out some. Cochran is the only artist in my collection with whom I’m anything like a completist, and who is represented in every possible format – 78, 45, EP, LP, LP box set, double-album, cassette, pre-recorded reel-to-reel tape, CD, CD box-set, video, DVD, picture disc, records on which he is present but not credited, mis-pressings, demos, originals, counterfeits, re-issues, 12-inch single, foreign issues, even 8-track!

I’d love to find a US or UK copy of one of the really great girl group discs, Baby Baby I Still Love You by the Cinderellas on Dimension/Colpix . It’s a stunning record, a great production, should have been a smash, but didn’t do a thing on the charts – I think it made something like no.134 in the USA very briefly. It had virtually no air play here, didn’t even attract a cover version! I’ve never even seen a copy, but I don’t think it’d be that pricey if one turned up. I’m also a big enthusiast for New Orleans pianist James Booker, and would pay quite high for Gonzo, an EP that was put out here on Vocalion. I always remain open to tasty finds especially if there’s not too much money involved!

No. I’m always quite amused by the idea that you can coach people on how to collect records. I suppose you can advise on where to find stuff, but surely you just be yourself and collect what you like . Oh, while I think about it, I am constantly irritated by hearing recordings of a song originally done 20 years previously being described as a ‘cover’. Maybe someone should clarify whether the terms cover and cover version are the same thing? In my day, a cover was contemporary, or almost so. For example, in 1962 the Drifters When My Little Girl is Smiling was covered in the UK by Jimmy Justice and Craig Douglas, in order to acquire good material with strong sales potential. As I recall all three versions of the song had chart action over here, splitting the sales between the three. I bought the Drifters’ original, naturally. That was the whole point, to ride on the coat-tails of good records already popular in the USA. I remember there was a US country artist, Sue Thompson, who cut John D. Loudermilk songs (Norman, James Hold The Ladder Steady), who always seemed to have her records covered over here by one Carol Deene on HMV. I used to get really fed up with it, as a UK cover rarely bettered a US original. But the term ‘cover’ is misused these days - you cannot call Paul McCartney doing Movie Magg a Carl Perkins ‘cover’ forty years after Carl had it out on Sun. That should be termed a ‘revival’ or ‘remake’.

Regularly. I have embraced the CD revolution which has enabled me to catch up on things I missed when I was young and penniless, now that I can afford it. A lot of the great Doo Wop records were unobtainable for years, and the coming of the CD has put that right. I play my records a great deal, and I activate the collection on the best possible vehicles – an HMV Model 102 wind-up gramophone for pre-’54 78s and two Dansettes – a Conquest Auto and a DeLuxe single play Junior turntable. I have them serviced by Philip Knighton, the Gramophone Man, in Wellington, Somerset (01823/661618…philip.knighton@btconnect.com). His shop is well-worth a visit, as he often comes up with some excellent 78s. I love the sound of a wind-up on pre-war country and blues 78s. There was no volume control – the sound was governed by the quality of the needle. You’d play it in the living room and stand in the kitchen! There is no other sound on earth like a record grinding to a halt half-way through because you forgot to wind up the machine after the previous play! You know, I discovered on some railway research I was doing that folk used to take their wind-ups on holiday with them on the train, just like folk do with Walkmans today!

I won’t….it goes to the nursing home with me! I must confess I haven’t given this a lot of thought yet, although now you’ve asked the question……I hope to stick around into my late 80s at least if I can maintain my health. Leaving it to my daughter is a possibility, as she’s aware of its value. I hate the thought of it being split up…..it ought to be a resource for somebody……