You know, the magic of musi is that it can create a feedback that is heard around the world.

And when the British first heard American rock n roll, they went wild and they replied with their ow unique, brilliant British rock.

And that dynamic is still going strong today.

Nowhere, nowhere in the world are there more impressive and amazing record stores than in the cities and towns of Great Britain.

So this road show, we have an appointment in the United Kingdom.

Favorite album from the U.K.?

I've picked The Winds of Chang by Eric Burdon and the animals.

This record right here, this shocked the world.

Brian, you know, there's another green world.

And a band that I really like is The Fall.

And probably my favorite album by them is grotesque.

Really important British record for me.

It's the Clash, combat Rock, revolver.

I want to tell you a story.

A country preacher calls me to say he's 91 year old mom and passed.

And mama collecte British and American rock LP's.

Hundreds and hundreds of them.

I was definitely intrigued.

So I'm driving about 80 mile from town on Two-Lane blacktop, where there was no cell phone coverage.

Sort of in the middle of nowhere.

And I finally get to this place, and the preacher says they're in his barn, which was much larger than his house.

I opened the door and my jaw drops.

What I found were 6500 LP's.

Now, mama must have shopped every bargain bin in every store with a bargain bin in a 75 mile radius.

There were so many.

I had to come back with a truck.

All mint condition.

Summer English imports a lot of bands that only put out 1 or 2 LP's.

All original labels.

Late 60s obscure psychedelia from the period between 1966 and 1987, which means there's some prime new wave and punk titles in the mix.

So the moral of the story is this you go where the music takes you.

Right now, it's taken us to London, down.

My first album, my first proper album that I made a choice to buy was Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet Paris 1985 changed my life.

This was child.

Yeah.

Beyonce is my always favorite.

She's a good singer.

I like R&B, you know.

So yeah, Diamond dogs, bye bye.

Way home.

That shows my age.

No.

Volume for Black Sabbath.

First album of mine.

Must have been Marc Bolan.

Marc Bolan, you don't know Marc Bolan.

Oh, right.

See?

Right now.

Okay.

Very cool.

That was my first.

Very cool.

And, sir, for tops.

Four tops out of the four times Motown was listed in the Black Sabbath, paranoid.

So we're in Soho, the Soh neighborhood of London, that is.

And we're in front of one of the real landmark record shops in the city.

Sister Ray record, owned by Mr. Phil Barton two record shop owners in Soho.

Talking.

Can we be safe shooting the shit?

Shoot the shit.

Yeah, that's what we're doing now.

The list of English bands with a connection to Soho via the amazing Marquee Club reads like a rock Olympus, the stones, LED Zeppelin, the Pink Floyd, the original Fleetwood Mac and Jimi Hendrix, who was largely unknown until he crossed the Atlantic and became the amazing game changing star.

His first LP, Are You Experience, was indeed recorded in London.

The shapeshifting visionary artist David Bowie got a breakthrough with his band Davy Jones, in the lower third at the Marquee Club all the way back in the fall of 1965.

So it's no surprise that record stores are in the same neighborhood and doing quite well today.

As a shop owner who's been in the game in London for so many years.

Is there any city in the world with a greater mix of music than London?

I haven't seen it.

Haven't been there.

There's some fantastic record shops everywhere I've been, but I don't think you get quite as much of a mix as you do in London.

I think we're blessed with a fantastic city.

Berwick Street in Soho is a place known for vinyl for many years, since Harrah's has been there since the 1980s, when the street was called the Golden Mile of Vinyl, with more than 20 record stores.

You might recognize the street from the 2001 music video fear from Stone roses frontman Ian Brown.

That 1995 Oasis album cover for What's the Story?

Morning Glor that was taken on Berwick Street right outside Sister Ray's windows.

I get the impression that, even in the heyday of CDs, you never got out of the vinyl end of things.

No, we've we've always been into vinyl because it's the purest format, and it's the format it if you're a record collector, which we all love, that's the s, the nice, the format you want.

Record collectors have been flocking to Soho for a long, long time.

Some of those collectors include The Clash guitarist Mick Jones or Joe Elliott from Def Leppard.

Also, Prince, who rolled up in a pink limo and picked up Sly and the family Stone and Jimi Hendrix Records for his collection.

The list of in-store performances are equally impressive, a testament to the live music scene here.

If I wanted to spend a week here doing nothing but going out and listening to Latin music, I'd have a wonderful time.

If I wanted to go out and listen to electronica.

Obviously there is that in profusion.

Traditional rock, people like Steve Barrow of, Blood and, Fire Records blows me away by how much he knows about jazz music.

So, it looks like, every genre is served on a full plate here in London.

You've only got to look at a list of gigs that are going on in London every night, and then up in the venues all over town, and you can find if you can't find something, then you're not lookin hard enough because he's there.

It's all there.

Oh, it's definitely all here.

And so are the records.

That's why I never pass up an opportunity to look for new additions to my collection.

So time is longer than ro.

I just got tears in my eyes here.

It's sister Ray's London record shop because I found a Spanish pressing.

Otis Redding's I've Got Dreams to Remember, which was, a wonderful record.

He did.

And when I was a young person growing up, I just thought Otis Redding was the greatest.

Okay.

And I've got this.

And I've got dreams to remember.

Hey, sister Ray's is just one of the great shops here in London.

And, you know, in the UK, what you often see are stores that specialize in 1 or 2 genres of music.

We're heading across town to Brixton, an area with a history of being the home for those of Caribbean background, along with the music scene reflecting the various styles of music in the West Indies, there's an authenticity to Brixton as the center for the legendary English reggae industry.

Hold tight.

Think this brand Bushmills.

It's just cool.

And Claudia Wilson has a record store that, has a reputatio for spreading the music culture.

And it's a store that also serves the community not only of Brixton, but people from all over the world come to this neighborhood and community because it has such a solid reputation as being a home of reggae and Jamaican music and Caribbean music in Great Britain.

So.

Well, it's true, it's a little bit chilly because.

Because I'm hoping my reputation for us stuff is also very good.

I love hip hop for a long time.

I love so deeply.

There's a man named, down beat the ruler, Anthony Rookwood.

Okay.

And he has, you know, the sound in Jamaica and and up in New York.

And one day we were talking about American music and Jamaican music.

And he finally said.

Jamaicans are the biggest thieves of music in the world.

Listen, if it wasn't covered, it didn't mean anything, all right?

So, you know, we cover tunes.

We're very, very supportive of all our reggae artists in the area, all our reggae labels.

There's lots of labels in here, but we're really varied here.

Jazz, the UK jazz scene.

I don't know if you've heard much about the UK jazz scene.

I've heard some of the players here starting with this to Courtney Pine, starting with Mr. Courtney Pine, which is his.

He's my guy on the wall there.

Oh yeah.

Claudia, the new jazz.

I'm telling you about the new UK jazz scene.

Yeah, I this lady here is on the top.

I mean, there are lots of them that are just amazing at what they do.

And you listen to her version of of, police and thieves.

You have to listen to it is get yourself a nice cup of glass of something nice.

Sit down, chill out.

Listen to Sara McFarlane, because she's phenomenal.

Exploring new artist on vinyl and in person.

While we were at Pure Vinyl, we met Tai, a rising London artist.

I'm a hip hop artists, not a rap artist.

A rap artist just makes records for the radio.

I'm a hip hop artist.

I actually believe in the culture of hip hop, and I firmly believe that hip hop culture is something that you, you do.

You practice, you, you envelop and it envelops you.

My job description i I work here to buy more records under the pretense of looking for the perfect beats.

And if I can find a sample, I'm a buy the sample before anyone else.

So I'm really pretending to work here.

But really, I'm here to snatch all the great samples.

That's what I'm doing.

Records will always hold a records right now hold me for ransom.

So I have over 10,000 records in my house at the moment.

The feel of putting a record on and letting it play, and getting on a fairly regular day.

I don't think there's anything more magical or more uplifting or musically healing.

That CD is great.

MP3 is a great, you know, having a little, you know, your iPod or whatever but just the record running out, the sound of the needle going round and round and knowin that you've got to turn it over and then get on with your day.

I just think there's no greater reminder that the record proces is a magical process in regards to us absorbing music, and it's it's the museum.

So nothing gives me museum and art as far as music more than records, because, you know, they are museum pieces.

They're archival pieces that you have to, you know, slot out, play, turn over.

So it's just like a picture a few blocks away in the open air Brixton market, you'll find Lion Vibes, one of the greatest reggae stores in the entire world.

This place is defying traditional business models, starting online and then movin to a brick and mortar location.

And it hasn't been easy.

People have less cash to spend, so people are tight on what they spend.

In terms of what you need to spend, where you're going to cut back on the things that are a pleasure and not a necessity.

Records is probably one of those.

There are some addicts that, on their last penny, would still spend it on a record.

Brixton was a massive cultural center for Caribbean and regga in general in this country, and it's clear the people of Brixton support their music, and just one of the customers that day at Lion Vibes was veteran regga DJ Earl Gateshead, who describes the magic of playing vinyl for a reggae audience.

You can play a download or a 71 stages.

You just come up to me and there's like, I'm here to write the original firs press record and the whole place erupts and everybody's dancing and it sounds fantastic.

And they just want to me and say, I played that thing.

And I didn't get that reaction.

It's because it's so stiff and the music's magic.

It's there's no magic in that record than there is at the time.

Once he attended the numbers, you lose some magic.

Oh my gosh.

London Town is full of music culture, y'all, and we've barely scratched the surface.

I think a few future visits are needed, but right no we're heading a few hours north to check out another legendary English music town, the home of Rave electronica, cutting edge pop and the phenomena and lifestyle known as northern soul.

We're going to Manchester.

We got a saying here and on the sixth day, God created Manchester.

This is one of the great music cities of the United Kingdom.

This is the city that originated rave culture.

And I can tell you, I've never been anywhere in the world that has a more vibrant music culture than Manchester, New England.

While walking the streets, I suddenly see a mural of Tony Wilson, the founder of the groundbreaking independent label out of Manchester.

Factory records, home of Joy Division and New Order, two bands that firmly put this city on the map worldwide in the 1980s.

And around the corner there is a store established the very same year as that iconic labe and is equally as well regarded.

But right here at Piccadilly Records, which is one of the most impressive shops I've ever been in in my life.

We're going to have to go inside and see exactly why stores such as these keep the music, culture and music liberty kicking and their community.

You know, one of the things I love about this shop, Piccadilly Records in Manchester, is the fact that album have really wonderful, succinct explanations and reviews of the music inside.

You know, I mean, this particular album by Marvin Gaye to me is one o my favorite soundtrack records.

The movie itself was pretty laughable, but the music was incredible.

For if you check this.

They're explaining why exactly this Billie Holiday album is a magnificent, example of why she was such a wonderful vocalist or any of any of the record in the store, and you get a real fine, quick synopsi of why it's worthy of listening.

And I call that music education.

One thing that make a great store are the employees.

You can find men and women who've not only been working there for years.

They're also authoritative curators of the music and are often directly involved in the clubs, concert and recording studios where they live, which always makes for fun and interesting conversations.

I think music is made for it, for stealing.

Yeah.

This is I hate this phrase, appropriation of some kind of moment like music should be appropriated.

We live in a global village.

Things should cross-pollinate and resonate without any, any desire.

In 81, I came back to Jamaica saying, I got news for you.

They got more Skeete Davis records and and Jim Reeves records in Jamaica in print than we do over here.

Now.

We also found stores such as Vinyl Revival and Vinyl Resting Place.

Both treasure trove for anyone looking to get that vinyl fix.

Oh, you know, I'm just looking through some of these, vintage, English Jamaican presses.

And, as the saying goes, righ now, I'm like a pig in the mud.

How long have you had your store?

It's very nearly.

I've never been here very nearly five years.

I think it was about this time, five years ago when I left.

Ironically, a record shop before to open up my own.

And yeah, the fact that the five years have just flown has come so fast.

Well, you must be doing something right, because you're in a town where you'r not the only good record store.

You got a lot of competition, but every time, you know the two times I've been in here, you've got customers on a weekday, which is always a good thing.

Very good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think Manchester's been a famous music city probably since the 60s when there was bands like The Hollies.

Tennessee Save and the BJ's al starting off within this area.

But I think he gets known mainly for the kind of late 70s, early 80s post-punk kind of new Joy Division, The Smiths, New Order, those kind of bands.

And I think that's what people travel for a lot of the time.

And I think people want to see when they come to Manchester, they don't want a nice day.

They want it to be almost gray and overcast.

You have a country that is wonderful for wearing hats.

Absolutely.

What I tell peopl that are in their teens or 20s, I said, you know, you're blessed with this thing called the internet because I have 22 year olds who work for me.

They can find ou something in 30s that literally took me moving from town to town in real time, finding out for myself.

Yeah.

That's true.

And but it's so much harder now.

Yeah, yeah.

So at the age of 22, you can be a pretty damn good music.

Collagist.

True.

Yeah.

Just just with Google.

Really?

Isn't it?

That's what I've done.

Now, I don't even a really good DJ to me.

They're musicologists.

It's great to say as well, because at one point it always seemed to be when I was collecting, I've been collecting nearly.

It only took nearly 20 years, but it was always me with a bunch of 40, 50 or 60 year old men, you know?

And now it's totally split.

It seems, across all ages, which is only seems to have really happened in the last five, ten years.

And I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Oh, these two as well.

How long you had to shop?

Since 97.

And before that?

Before that, I was a windscreen fitter.

But I used to work on the markets in the 70s.

You know, I'm walking around just thinking.

I don't think I've ever been in a place anywhere that had more impressive record shops in Manchester.

And I'm not just saying that.

Yeah, well, when I opened in, it was 23.

In 97.

I think there's seven of us left now.

You know, I'll put it this way.

Doing a story made me a better person than I was going to be.

Otherwise, because it gave me a purpose, you know?

So I've been to 21 years, and I'm starting to get to the point where I've got enough for retail.

Really?

Yeah.

Small store.

And that's, you know, it's.

So it's always a fact to keep it going.

You've got, you know, when the competition on the corner Piccadilly, they run the new stuff down like so you've always been the biggest sixth.

It was like me and I was about to move into the, you know, the new markets.

Okay.

So, you know, to sustain it because you don't get to go secondhand through the door anymore.

I'm the only shop in the city that goes out to a collection.

It's the only shop that runs a label.

You know, and I'm probably the smallest one that's left.

But I have 1 to 2 people, and all they do is they stand at a counter and either are buying records, buying CDs.

CDs are 3 pound.

They sell the six and eight.

They don't sell volume.

I tell my customers, use CDs much cheaper than a download.

The thing is, we the UK, downloads have gone.

No one pays the downloads.

Great.

I want to have the streams.

I tends to buy vinyl in the sort of city like Manchester where a bit more cool, a bit more hair, you know, rather it's a viny all the way into down the stream until I remembe holding a CD in 1988 and going.

And when they figure out how to push this through a telephone line we're going to find everything.

Vinyl demos.

But there's only 800.

Oh, it's all about jazz in Manchester.

All the big people they played with, all the pictures.

He's passed away.

The guy who it was, they wrote the book.

He was a private project.

Took him ten years to do.

It's all free trade off, all the big jazz artists, some great pictures.

You know, which you'll never see because it.

Well, UK pictures.

Give me a signature, please.

After this British whirlwind visit, I'll be thinking about th kindred spirits I met in the UK and how this music we love are truly the ties that bind.

But now it's time to go home to the store.

To our city.

And Willie.

Well, really?

Yeah, I got to say, the first record I really remember buying was Songs That Live in Here, and it could be the first record that ball was to clash actually, may have been Iggy Pop, it may have been Iggy in The Stooges or something like that but I don't remember which one.

I bought my money.

Probably, Kings of Our Frontier by Adam and the ants.

My first record.

That would have to be Purple Rain by Prince.

Actually.

Prince's.

I know he's been very prominent in my home life.

Like, especially with my mom.

My mom was a really big fan.

And, yeah, I know, I think music is kind of like the soul of everything.

Yeah, I think it was the Beatles.

I feel fine, okay.

And I was a bit miffed because I think it only got to number two and every other album, every other, every other single got one.

You picked number two.

Yeah, yeah.

No.

It's okay.

Are you over it now?

Just.

My first album.

I bought two albums at the same time for my first album.

That was my first outing.

One of them was Marvin Gaye was going on, and the other one was, buddy Holly.

It was buddy Holly.

It was a compilation of buddy Holly.

Tracks, because I really like the sound of the, the, the bells in every day.

And I said, I need to have that.

My first album that I bought because I inherited a lot of records from my parents, was the It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.

Public enemy second album.

I was totally enamored with that album.

It meant so much, it meant so much that I took it home and set my strict Nigerian parents down and said, listen, this record right here is going to change our lives.

Played it.

I was so, I was so motivated by what was being explained on that record.

And not just my parents disdai and disinterest was noticeable, but they for once, for once in their life, they sat down and let me kind of tell them about something rather than they just tell me.

So I thank public Enemy for allowing me the confidence to tell my parents to sit down and listen to this record.

But that was the first record I bought.