In the mid to late sixties me and my friends used to strip down old radio chassis, remove the valves then go up to see Mr Mazel. He used to bring boxes out of the inner depths of his shop and lovingly open them to reveal huge beautiful KT 88s and 45 push pulls. At the time the height of sophistication used to be an auto-changer Dansette or if you had a few quid a Blaupunkt radiogram.
We used to replace the old radio valves with our Mazels valves, line two chassis together and blast out monstrous Bluebeat and soul tunes through home-made speaker boxes with 18 inch bass reflex speakers and Jensen tweeters. We were 14/15 at the time and were notorious around Old Trafford. The police were regularly called out to deal with the noise 'nuisance' we created. We ended up making similar (but not quite as good!) systems for quite a few of them. Don't think they ended up being career policemen!
Mr and Mrs Mazel used to love us like we were their own children, they were fascinated by these barely teenage kids who used to mither them to death to sell us what by that time were seen as outmoded and useless relics. Mr Mazel used to threaten us that he would turn up without warning to see what we were getting up to but sadly he never did, Beneath his grumpy exterior he was a lovely, kind and extremely witty man.
Jamie Rennie
24/12/11
The pictures on this site brought back memories. The "rather grumpy" proprietor had a rival in the sale of cheap surplus stock - a firm called Godley's, on Shudehill. The regular small ads in the MEN frequently made digs at Godley's for being too expensive. Why pay Godley's prices - you know the kind of thing. Mazel's also sold out of date film, which was the only way I could afford to enjoy photography in those days.
Thanks to you all for posting these photographs and reminding me of the time when Manchester was a very different place from now.
Charles Cope
8/1/12
I bought a bass guitar from Mr Mazel (a Framus Star bass) the day I got my wrist taken out of plaster after a football accident at Ancoats hospital. I remember when I was a small boy in the 50s going through the tea chests of valves outside the shop with my dad. I later bought a Mazeltoff amp from the shop he opend in Manchester Road, Denton. I think he opend the shop afer the bulldozers got rid of the London Road shop.
Eric Lees
26/1/12
Mazel Radio - what wonderful memories that name evokes! As a teenager - a lifetime ago now - I used to buy a pop record there every week. I also remember buying my very first transistor radio there - a brown bakelite model - for the princely sum of 17/6d. Wonderful memories indeed!
David Benjamin
20/2/12
Mazels was a second hand shop on London Road, just before PiccadilySstation which sold all sorts of Radio and TV bits and pieces. They also had a very large collection of records which were displayed outside the shop in wooden boxes. You could even get the old 78`s there but also quite a lot of imports , soul and Blu Beat. I used to go down Saturday morning rain or shine cold hands thumbing through looking for the records I wanted. I was after King of Kings by Jimmy Cliff for ages but only managed to find a version by someone else Ez Rico ??...still bought it though.
Bernard Roberts
21/2/12
I used to work for Abe Dardick, the owner of Mazel Radio, from Aug 1961 until Oct 1966. Abe took over each shop on that block as it became empty, until he had the entire lot.
He did have a Brokers licence, that was so often confused with a pawn broker, many a row ensued when folk would come back weeks or months later to redeem their goods they thought they had pledged, only to find that they had already been sold, or had a price on them that they couldnt afford.
There were some well known names visited the shop, I sold an Amp to Denny Lane when he was with The Moody Blues, Dave Lee Travis was a customer, so were Tony Prince, Harry Worth, The Troggs, Ian Brady & the chief Prosecution witness against The Moors Murderers, the couple that played Harry & Concepta Hewitt in early editions of Corrie were among those iI can recall.
We once bought a lorry load of old Wurlizer juke box's for 5 shillings (25p) each, it was a common sight to see railway lorries delivering literally 1000's of old deleted 78 rpm records.
Abe had a mantra, if folk travel this far to sell something, they won't go home with it, so offer 'em bottom Dollar, and even after these people were shocked at the low offers we made and they went to other similar shops, but they ALWAYS ended up coming back to us.
Barri John
22/8/12
My dad used to take me to this place as a kid, I remember box's of records on the pavement outside and headphones and to play records inside before you bought. We bought many records here, "Torchy the battery boy sticks in my mind". Dad loved all kinds of music and he passed this on to me. I have a 78 in the Mazel cover and it makes me smile whenever I come across it. More picture ar on the Central Library archive. Lovely, lovely memories.
Hazel Sykes
27/8/12
What a magical place Mazels was. Valve amps everywhere. Bought a Hofner senator bass for 28 quid there and when the band split I sold my red burns sonic ( the one in the books photo, Blue Rondos ) to him for £12. I must have been nuts.
Bob Fordham
21/9/12
The shop on London Rd had a very cool atmosphere, there were objects everywhere, it only took seconds before something caught your eye that you coveted. I bought my first amp from Mr Mazel, a 10 watt Mazeltoff, they were not really well made but sounded good to me with my first guitar - a Hofner Verithin. I often think about that little amp, there's one on ebay now for £325, it's still got 2 days to run so god knows what it will realize by then.
We used to go in midweek when there were not many customers and Mr Mazel would let you try stuff. When he got tired of hearing the racket and kicked us out we would make our way to Mayers & Harrison's off Chester Rd, they also used to let us try stuff. Fantastic pictures, takes me back.
Chris Gill
3/4/13
I came across an empty Fender 2 x 12 Bassman cabinet which matched up with my own set-up. A pair of Fane speakers were purchased from Mazel radio and so I now had a Fender Bassman 50 driving 2 cabinets of 2 x 12 speakers.
I used these in my resident Gig at St. Edmunds Club in Little Hulton for many years.
Thank you Mr.Mazel.
Gerry Clayton
23/4/13
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