6

IN WHICH… I’M SHAKY ALL OVER

I mentioned to Julian that I had just sold, on eBay, Shakin’ Stevens’ first single, ‘Spirit of Woodstock’, for £74. I’d been delighted to do so, even though I knew that some copies had gone for three figures. I’d initially been unaware that I even had the record, or that it had any serious value, so I’d marked it down as charity shop fodder until I started checking out my singles to help with my fledgling project to downsize my collection. It was an EMI promo copy which I’d been sent back in 1970 for review. It was produced by Dave Edmunds, who co-wrote the B-side, so there was an indication there that it might hold an interest for collectors.

But, as I then rhetorically demanded of Julian, why had I kept hold of this record for well over 40 years without ever having played it after the initial review spin? Given that I did not dislike Shaky, but had never been any kind of real fan? I would not turn his songs off if they came on the radio but would never go out of my way to seek out his music. It made me think of the popular TV shows which reveal the inside of hoarders’ houses, piled high with all manner of rubbish and dirt. The show producers invariably send in professional cleaners to help the hoarders throw out as much as possible of the rubbish – but the hoarders are generally reluctant to part with as much as a used bus ticket. Was there a lesson here for me about my ever-increasing record collection?

The morning after this conversation I was reading On Form a book by former England cricket skipper, Mike Brearley. On page 332, I came across this paragraph:

‘Inability to choose may also result from our refusal to give up a desired course of action. We can’t let things go and then face the fact that we are likely to miss them and have to mourn them.’

This struck a chord with me immediately. It seemed to explain much of the reason that I have ended up with a collection of thousands of records, many of which I will never play again (indeed, some I have never played), yet every time I try to let some of them go, something persuades me that I may well ‘need’ them in the near future, even though deep down I know I will not. In some cases I seem to be able to overcome the objection to parting with them if there is sufficient financial reward as an incentive. Sometimes not even that motivates me to do so.

Take the example of a Rose Royce album, featuring a couple of their better-known tracks, and several more cuts, of which I couldn’t even sing you the opening bar. But there it sat in the collection, since its 1977 release when I received it for review. I still remember how ‘Wishing on A Star’ goes and find it an enjoyable listen. But ‘Ooh Boy’? ‘Funk Factory’? ‘You’re My World Girl’? Nope. You could offer me fortunes and I couldn’t recall a thing about any of them.

So how and why did I still own the record in 2019? Yes, it boasts a gatefold cover, and the great Norman Whitfield had a hand in writing six of the eight tracks. He has a wonderful Motown pedigree, having written and produced many terrific hits for various label artists, amongst them ‘(I Know) I’m Losing You’, ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, ‘Cloud Nine’, ‘Ball of Confusion’, and ‘Just My Imagination’.

But did I have the Rose Royce hits on any other records or CDs. Yes. Check. Okay, any friends who might like to have the record? No. Check. Saleable on eBay or Amazon? Tried it a couple of times at very low price. No bites. So no real justification for keeping it on the premises. At last, into the ‘Charity Shop Bag’ it went.

Multiply this process by a few hundred and you’ll see how difficult it has proved to make significant inroads into reducing my quantity of vinyl – and don’t forget I am also still bringing in new examples. Recently I adopted a new scheme and created a bank account expressly to contain the money I received when selling records, so that at least I know how much I have made. What I haven’t always done, though, is taken an equivalent amount of money out of that account every time I buy another record to bring in to the building.

Now I’ll tell you how records were a vital part of my limited teenage romantic armoury…