Graham Sharpe's vinyl love affair began in the 1960s and since then he has amassed over 3000 LPs and spent countless hours visiting record shops worldwide along with record fairs, car boot sales, online and real-life auctions. After leaving his job at William Hill, his retirement dream was to visit every surviving second-hand record shop across the world. Vinyl Countdown followed his journey to over a hundred shops across the globe and the adventures he accrued along the way, from Amsterdam and Angus, to Bedfordshire and Budapest, Tennessee and Wellington. Now, ON THE RECORDs: Notes from the Vinyl Revival explores the impact of recent global events on the record industry and considers the reasons why vinyl remains a beloved – and booming – format.
Far from being yesterday's fading, forgotten format, vinyl records have survived and flourished as the music medium of choice for not only baby-boomers, but all ages. Every record a collector acquires comes with a story of its own, and the recent Covid-19 lockdowns prompted many vinylholics, including Sharpe, to look more closely at their reasons for collecting, take stock of existing collections and rediscover old favourites. ON THE RECORDs: Notes from the Vinyl Revival includes interviews and contributions from voices across the record industry – shop owners, record company insiders, online/postal sellers, auction organisers, market traders of vinyl, amateur collectors – who share their stories with candour, warmth and humour. A mesmerising blend of memoir, travel, music and social history that will appeal to anyone who vividly recalls the first LP they bought and any music fan who derives pleasure from the capacity that records have for transporting you back in time.
