Lost in music: A look back at some much-missed record shops

Ten of the then most popular 78s were consequently displayed alongside the dresses, and a trend was born. The stock of vinyl grew rapidly. The dresses stopped being sold.

Tape cassettes and acoustic guitars were added later.

Gloria's Record Bar, photographed in November 1970 (Image: Newsquest)

It could however be slightly chaotic when someone wanted to listen to the latest Frank Sinatra record while someone else asked to hear the newest Rolling Stones single. So the Blint family bought the shop next door, turning it into a ‘pop shop’. The original unit housed the ‘adult record shop’. 

“Now the records don’t get mixed up and the customers don’t get in each other’s way. Everyone is happy”, said Gloria’s brother, Howard.

Gloria's opened a second shop, in East Kilbride, in 1968.

Among the artists whose records were sold by Gloria’s in 1970 were Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Ten Years After, Pink Floyd, James Taylor, the Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, the Everly Brothers – and, yes, Frank Sinatra, to say nothing of Nancy Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Frank Chacksfield, Mantovani and Sacha Distel.

HMV, Union Street, 1982 (Image: Newsquest)

Gloria's is just one of the many once-familiar record shops that are no more. Older music fans still speak of it with fondness, as they do with stores that operated in later eras. Stores such as Record Exchange on Jamaica Street, Bloggs, Listen Records, 23rd Precinct, Fiesta, Echo, Lost Chord, RAT Records, and Graffiti. There were so many of them. When Lost in Music, in De Courcy's Arcade, closed down in 2008, a post on the website of music magazine The Word read: "Another splendid music shop has closed its doors forever. RIP Lost in Music in Glasgow's Cresswell Lane".

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Keith Bruce, then the Herald's arts editor, wrote in 2013 of some of his own memories of record shops in Glasgow.

"My father defied me to go into the original Virgin store on Argyle Street, presumably on the responsible parental grounds that it was staffed by dodgy hippies who also sold king-size cigarette papers.

The Virgin Megastore on Argyle Street, 2001 (Image: Nick Ponty)

"I did go, of course, but I spent a great deal more money in branches of Listen, particularly those on Renfield Street and, later, Byres Road. I was rarely seen without a Listen plastic bag, in fact, although it didn't always contain a record.

"Bruce's on Union Street became an important destination in the late 1970s for reggae and disco 12-inch platters in particular, and then Gordon Montgomery's original Fopp stall in De Courcy's Arcade off Byres Road began to expand into national consciousness. There was Bloggs, and Missing, and Gloria's. 23rd Precinct in Bath Street was a long-surviving institution that took over the DJ market, of course, and is now a classy booze shop".

Browsing through albums in an HMV Glasgow store (Image: Newsquest)

Tom Russell, one of Scotland’s best-known rock DJs, ran, back in the day, a number of record shops.

“Before I opened my own shops" he told the Herald in 2019, "I lived in Kirkintilloch and used to go to a record shop called Sound Developments, in Cowgate. When I went into Glasgow, there were some shops that I frequented – Listen Records, which was great, but my favourite was 23rd Precinct.

“I had my own shops – first in Bishopbriggs, then Shettleston, Duke Street and Mount Florida. It was enjoyable, though it was probably at the tail end of the heyday of record shops".

Tom Russell, photographed at Rock FM in 2009 (Image: Marc Turner)

The Old Glasgow Record Shops group on Facebook is a treasure-trove of such memories. One member, Eric Marshall, has posted several photographs of bags that were once used by the stores, including the one seen here. He and his brother went into Glasgow most weeks back in the Seventies.

Ian MacDiarmid, of Lost in Music, De Courcy's Arcade, in Glasgow's West End, in 2004 (Image: Lewis Segal)

"Listen in Cambridge Street was a favourite", he told the Herald yesterday. "They later opened in Renfield Street and Byres Road. I was brought up in Greenock and like many provincial towns in the Sixties and Seventies we had quite a few shops, the main ones being Calder’s, Tennent’s and Sargeant’s.

Old Glasgow Record Shops group on Facebook

"Later we had Rhythmic Records, which closed maybe 12 years ago. Thankfully after a long gap Reverence Records opened in Greenock a year or so ago. Mostly second-hand but some new. I am now 69 but still collecting. Obviously a lot online but also from Missing Records in Oswald Street, Glasgow, and sometimes Fopp".

The record department at Biggar's, Sauchiehall Street, 1963 (Image: Newsquest)

Specialist record shops didn't have the market all to themselves, though. "Loads of what might be called now Department Stores had a record department back in the 70s - [I] used to go to Frasers back in the day and they always had great bargains on obscure stuff that they had bought in and couldn’t sell", writes Sam Tennent, another member of the Facebook group.

Bon Jovi's set at Tower Records, July 1995

Other big cities had their favourite, long-established record shops. Dundee had Groucho's (run by Alastair (Breeks) Brodie, who died in 2019 - staff from the shop went on to establish Thirteen Records). Perth's Concorde Music, which is still operating today, was opened during the Summer of Love in 1967. Edinburgh had many: G.I. Records, Phoenix, Sweet Inspirations, Its, Hot Licks, and numerous others.

The Virgin Records store in Glasgow's Union Street in 1984 (Image: Newsquest)

A key figure in the history of independent Scottish record shops is Bruce Findlay, whose chain of Bruce's Record Shops could be found in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and several towns across Scotland.

He opened the Edinburgh shop at 79 Rose Street in 1969, having already opened one in Falkirk, Stirlingshire.

As author Brian Hogg recounts in his book, The History of Scottish Rock and Pop: the shop in the capital "specialised in 'long hair'; progressive rock, imports and greatcoat blues; it stocked underground newspapers and displayed the work of local artists on its walls, rather than just plug product".

Interviewed last summer by David Hepworth and Mark Ellen for their Word in Your Attic series, available on YouTube, Findlay said the Rose Street shop was tiny, just 400 square feet, but it did become "legendary".

In 1952/53 his mother had been involved in the opening of a record shop in Falkirk's Kerse Lane. Bruce began working there on Saturdays, by which time the shop had become hugely popular. In 1959 it expanded into new-build premises in the town, with Findlay, his brother Brian and mother living in a flat above.

At the tail-end of 1967 he and Brian opened their own shop in the town. Initially called Brian Findlay's Record Shop - it later became known as Bruce's - it attracted much custom from Glasgow and Edinburgh. The Rose Street shop quickly followed.

The wording on the shop's crimson-coloured bags - "I found it at Bruce's" - were, says Bruce, inspired by the message used on bags by The Colony, a New York record store, "I found it at The Colony".

The Rose Street shop famously ordered 500 copies of King Crimson's 1969 debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King - and sold all of them in the space of a single day.

The shop was particularly popular with students. "It almost became like a little club", he said of it. "It was a little hub of information. We learned as much from our customers as they learned from us".