45's LP's and Record Players

I am an avid collector of recorded music and films.

You can discern how long I have been collecting recorded music by the fact that I still retain one hundred and fifty two 7” 45 rpm records in my record collection!

I first started collecting recorded music during the time when 10” & 12” 78 rpm records were still being sold. (Those that broke quite easily unless you were very careful with the way you handled them!)

Sadly I no longer possess any of those old records – not because they were all smashed, but because when the new sound technology came in (electrically driven and amplified record players – as opposed to the old wind up gramophone) most of the machines gradually phased out the ability to rotate a turntable at 78 rpm (revolution per minute to the uninitiated) so it became impossible to play the old records at the correct speed!

One of the earliest and cheapest models of record player was the Dansette, which was a single record player produced by Birmingham Sound Reproducers (BSR)





Eventually the Auto Changer came on to the market. This device enabled you to pile up about 6 records above the turntable and as one record ended and the pick up arm swung off the record, the next record would drop down on to the turntable ready to be played.

My first record player was a Bush with a Garrard turntable. It was my pride and joy, and was a bit more sophisticated than the original Dansettes of the period in that it had a speed selector for no less than FOUR speeds – 16 and 2/3, 33, 45, 78! The slower speed of 16 and 2/3 was for recordings of the spoken word, which didn’t require as wide a frequency range reproduction as music.

Looking back to the late 50’s/early 60’s I remember that one of my teenage heroes was a singer called Lonnie Donegan. Lonnie used to play guitar and banjo with the likes of Chris Barber’s Jazz Band, and eventually formed his own band which was known as the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group.

If you haven’t heard of Lonnie Donegan, or forgotten who he was read on…..

Lonnie Donegan MBE (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002) was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He was known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s. The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums states Donegan was "Britain's most successful and influential recording artist before The Beatles. He chalked up 24 successive Top 30 hits, and was the first UK male to score two U.S. Top 10s"

more in the next blog........