It is always great to report on a new record shop opening but even more exciting to hear about a shop that specialises in jazz/blues and hip-hop that has opened in Glasgow.
Graham Jones asked owners Alan and Carolyn Bonnyman about the store.
We are a new, small, independent record shop based in the west end of Glasgow. We sell a curated range of high-quality music specializing in jazz both classic and contemporary but have a strong collection of associated genres such hip hop, soul, funk and blues with an emphasis on contemporary music and rare or high end audiophile re-issues of classics and live recordings.
We named the shop Second Line after the New Orleans jazz parade – the ‘first line’ in a parade is made up of the parade leader and the band. The revellers who fall in behind listening and dancing to the music are referred to as the second line, this is us – we don’t make the music, we listen to it! We also loved the idea of the community participation of the second line in parades and being part of the local community is very important to us.
What inspired you to open a record shop?
Second Line is owned by us, husband and wife Alan and Carolyn. We’ve always had a love of music and vinyl and especially jazz and all its associated genres. Possibly a midlife crisis(!) but we decided we wanted to change careers slightly and with our backgrounds in finance and marketing we thought we could give running a shop a good shot! It’s been hectic but the least stressful part is when it’s just us in the shop, some gorgeous music on and chatting to our great customers.
What are your memories of the first day?
It’s a bit of a blur to be honest… We opened on the 1st February this year, slightly later than we’d hoped and we’d had posters up with the opening date, so we’d got the word out but didn’t know what to expect. It was absolutely mobbed from start to finish, our teenagers were with us all day as well and it was all hands on deck with a constant flow of customers, friends and neighbours in to browse, buy and wish us well. It was a wonderful but tiring day!
What are the shops unique selling points?
Alan has been brilliant at discovering and building relationships with labels and distributors across not only the UK but Europe and the US as well and as a result we have what we hope is a pretty unique stock of records. We have some labels that are very hard to get in the UK (we only sell in the UK online as well as in store). We’ve tried to stock not just the classic albums and artists everyone knows and loves but find less well known live recordings or rarer reissues. Out with jazz, we stock a lot of hard to find hip hop that Alan has sourced and as a result have built up a small, loyal following of customers which we’re always keen to source new finds for.
From the outset we wanted to show case local artists as much as possible and we’ve been so delighted by the amount of talent in the Scottish Jazz scene at the moment. One of the highlights so far has been sponsoring and using our space as part of the Glasgow Jazz Festival and we’ve loved meeting musicians and organisers of the jazz scene across Scotland.
One innovation that is popular with our customers is that we have a small listening area at the back with iPads and headphones loaded with all the vinyl to listen to.
We’ve hosted a number of (small… like a tiny desk concert!) live sessions in store to promote the new albums of some fantastic Scottish Jazz musicians such as Matt Carmichael and Ali Watson. These events are free, normally a late afternoon and welcome anyone along from the local community to come along for a listen. We’ve already another few in the pipeline and are really enjoying using the shop in this way.
What Proper releases are you enjoying?
With the weather being so nice we have been playing happy vibe records. Two albums from Proper that our customers have been loving and have been great summer listening are:
Tommy Guerrero – Sunshine Radio
Roy Ayers – Everybody Loves the sunshine
Second Line Records
Second Line Records
133 Hyndland Road,
Glasgow,
Scotland,
G12 9JA
The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made It Happen
Graham Jones is the author of ‘The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made It Happen’ which has features on over 200 independent record shops that he has visited. The book was made in to a film titled ‘The Vinyl Revival’ available on DVD. Both can be ordered from Proper, independent record shops, Amazon and other online retailers.
Read about the book, film and vinyl soundtrack here