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Oxford Road - then moved to Deansgate
Great shop with a very wide range of gear - although perhaps more interested in supplying schools, etc, rather than groups.
The original Oxford Road shop had a small window for brass instruments, which was of great interest to me.
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Mameloks (Oxford Street) to-day
(photo: S Bunyan)
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Oxford Street
Four floors of gear, always on "sale". Jim was ever present, casting his business eye over potential customers.
I think Jim saw us all as potential customers!
"I had not played in a band in the Manchester area for over 10 years but finally my Kent based band started to work further north - gigging in Manchester one weekend.
I was eager to show this band of "southerners" what a real music shop was like and we ended up in Reno's.
Jim must have been really getting on by then - but he still managed to sell us gear we hadn't come into the shop to buy". Nothing had changed!
Paul Mlynarz, Life 'n' Soul (Kent)
I heard a story about Jim Reno. In his later years he had a bad heart attack from which he recovered and sold one of two Stradivarius violins he owned and gave the money to Withington Hospital.
Jim Reno........ a very 'down to earth' bloke.....I remember speaking to Jack Howarth (deceased) of Harker & Howarths in Bolton about a trade presentation that he and Jim had attended.It was a demonstration of the latest keyboard from Yamaha or Korg, anyway the product was being put through its paces with all the spiel by some sales dummy from London, took ages to get through all its facilities and potential and finally it came to the part where the presenter asked if there were any questions from the floor on this latest wonderful answer to the keyboard player's dreams......first up was Jim who said......'I'm very impressed with your machine son but tell me.....can I sell the bloody thing?'
Paul Shaw
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Finally closing down in 1985.
Jim has probably passed away now but will be fondly
remembered by many musos for his very important
conribution to the Manchester music scene.
Like the rest, Reno's has gone
(photo: S Bunyan)
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The picture on the site is too far up London Road towards the town centre, although the shop may have been here at one time, the building I recall used to be the other side of the railway out towards Ardwick, it occupied the grassed area in the photo, the flyover in the background is the Mancunian Way, as I recall the shop was demolished when the University buildings, to the right, were extended.
Beyond the Mancunian Way, in what some folk will know as the RS Colour labs building, now resides the School of Sound Recording (SSR) which is in the business of training aspiring live and studio engineers, this is a superb facility and is helping continue Manchesters great contributions to the music world. http://www.s-s-r.com/
Paul Braddock |
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Originally in Charles Street (where the BBC is now) the shop moved to Oxford Street, near the Wimpey and under the railway bridge. Graham fixed the Dansette's in the back room.
Sadly, we have heard Graham has now passed away.
The A1 extension has been taken over by the Academy of Sound
(photo: S Bunyan)
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A1 now carries ads not amps
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| Memories |
"My brother and I ran a mobile disco in South Manchester and reguarly played The Bulls Head in Mottram Cheshire. it was the haunt of people like Penn the road manager of the Purple Gang who gave us a copy of Granny takes a Trip which I still have! Many years later I came back to Macclesfield to launch a local radio station and discovered that the Purple Gang were still known in the area by many, along with the Macc boys (new on the block). Used to buy all our kit from A1 - a real aladdins cave of great stuff. We bought the Triumph amp and yes it sounded horrible and was unstable on long bits of cable (bell wire) also its lamps flickered when a bass note went thru it and the mono stereo switch had to be flicked reguarly to get the audio on.
It was our first real amp so took pride of place and eventually got teamed up with a WEM 100 from AI and some fantastic speakers by TVM of Manchester. We also got some Sound City 4 x 12 columns for a second disco. What happended to TVM ? Any photos? Still remember the smell of A1 a mixture of beer/cigarettes and Rexin cloth!"
I know that your page is mostly dedicated to the 60's but this place is so important to the Manc music scene that with all due respect,I feel that it is due a slightly deeper investigation...
During the time I was there (early nineties to 2002)A1 was THE place to buy your gear from-a "proper" music shop staffed by musos(albeit with various stages of hangover),rather than today's obsession with "identikit" slat-walled musical chain-stores that look more like Dixons.
I used to spend my weekends as a kid just gazing at the rows of guitars and nipping off into those little side-rooms to play with the keyboards and toys that you could never afford!Fast forward 10 years,and I'm working there.
If you wandered round A1 during the week you were as likely to bump into the likes of Johnny Marr, Noel Gallagher, Barney Sumner, im Booth, Reni or even Gary Barlow as you were the next up-and-coming local wannabee. The place was buzzing and I'll never forget my first Saturday afternoon working behind the counter-the place was utterly crazy,with competing guitarists trotting out the opening bars of Nirvana's "smells like teen spirit" at ridiculous volume levels...until Ann "pulled the plug" on them from the mains switch under the counter.
I had some great experiences at A1,and through working there I got to meet people,go to gigs,and see such crazy things that if you bring them up in conversation today people think you're either mad or telling fibs!
Alas-all good things must come to an end and as competition from the likes of the big chains increased, Ann and Graham found it increasingly difficult to compete and they eventually decided to retire and sold out to AOS, as in the picture shown.
That's when the "Mancunian soul" of the place died for me,and it was never the same afterwards.
AOS eventually sold out to Sound Control,who have since folded. I just pray that that famous old piece of Mancunian music history is recognized as such and doesn't just turn into yet another faceless nightclub or restaurant.
RIP A1.
ex A1 Hi-Tech guy |
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Jackson Street, HulmeNear the BBC studios (remember Pop North with Gaye Byrne and Bernard Herrman and the NDO), the shop and its location has long since disappeared due to redevelopment.
Tony Lingard, however, well remembers the shop, having bought his first bass there. A Burns for 15 quid. |
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Burning the candle at three ends gigging around the London jazz scene 1959-1962 I returned with some reluctance to Manchester and spent almost one year hardly leaving the house gradually getting my head together.
The first day job a got was working at Mayer and Harrison. What an establishment - Dickensian with brass might just about describe it - owned by the redoubtable Mr.Mayer. Brass was for him; brass instrument-wise and what made the ancient cash-register ring. He was I think, under the hard northern businessman persona, a kind man but business and profit was for him a very serious matter and his eye was always firmly fixed on what we would call during this current era - The Bottom Line. His small foibles included a single-bar electric fire to heat the entire shop. Recycling all string and brown paper. Paying very low wages. Regarding the concept of a lunch hour as a hopelessly modern conceit.
The shop premises where in a very poor state of repair but were nevertheless a combination of museum and an almost buried treasure. There were room after room of brass band instruments in various stages of disrepair ready to be refurbished in the equally Dickensian workshop he owned just down the street from the shop.
Really interesting for me where the many pitch-paper parcels tucked away in various corners. Strange brass instruments with multiple crooks and slides. Bugles with stops similar the one favoured by a member of the Alberts. There were dozens of these instrumental curiosities. I sometime wonder what happened to them.
I freely admit the year I spent there was an education. It provided me with sharp exposure to the realities of business and the making of profit. Encounters with a very sober world referred to then as 'The Movement' that is the brass band world and something that I am sure has long ceased to exist in that manifestation. Superb musicians who earned their living in factories and mines. Portly gentlemen with a great sense of their own importance the members of sundry organising committees.
After one year of doing my six days a week - with no lunch hour (it reminded me to some extent of my time in the RAF and the 'We can take it ' attitudes you would experience in the ranks) I succumbed during a particularly cold December - the one bar electric fire - to a very bad case of tonsillitis and thus ended my brief and I must admit interesting career in the employment of Mayer and Harrison.
There is a sense in which the disappearance the shop and the very street in which it stood is a fitItng closure on a time and a world that seems ever more remote.
Peter Maguire
In 1965 Mayer and Harrison's gave me 50 pounds for a harmony 358 and sold me for an extra 20 pounds, a Gibson 330. I still have the guitar today, playing in Austalia - it's perfect and was the best deal I have ever made.
I was sorry to hear Grahame from A.1 music had passed away, he was a great guy and I bought a lot of gear off him.
Alan Roberts
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Shudehill
A friend of mine worked there and talked me into buying a Fender Precision bass ( I was playing a Fender six string bass at the time ), but I didn't like it, it wasn't anywhere near as good as the Jazz bass I used to play so I took it back and asked for my money back, and believe it or not they gave it me back !
Butch Mepham
I remember Highams from about 1963, I bought a Hofner Verithin bass guitar, (my first bass), a lovely cherry red colour. It was £49 and my dad signed as guarantor and put down the deposit,(£5-12-6.)and I had to pay 12/6 a week for ever! I only earned £2-12-3 a week as an apprenticed electrician, and my mum had the 2 quid for my board. Happy days!
Chris Evans
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Personally I could never work out the reason for the location of this shop. I worked at CWS around the corner and passed it almost every day (on the way to the chippie, that did 3/3d specials of pie and chips, tea and bread and butter) and it always seemed to be in the wrong place.
Did anyone ever buy there? I presume it must have been a popular place in the early sixties but it was way off the Oxford Road muso route.
Mal Thompson bought there - here's a copy of his HP agreement!
"Higham's was interesting, there was a guy worked there called Terry, who I still see around South Manchester. It's location was in the area where all the electronics suppliers, Globe Radio, and Newcross Supplies are the only two I can recall, and hi-fi shops, Godley's (owned by Kevin Godley's family) was also on Withy Grove. Hingham's auctioned off their remaining gear and closed in the early 70s.
In the same area there was a very tiny music shop, that I can't remember the name of, on a little street called Sugar Lane, now swallowed up by the Arndale! "
I have fond memories of Highams Music on Shudehill. My first ever job was repairing hairdryers at Pifco who had a warehouse/office opposite.
During the dinner hour we used to sit on the steps and the current guitarist of Johnny Martin and the Paiges (whose name escapes me) used to bring in his Colorama guitar and show off to us lesser mortals. He was very good at Buddy Holly style rhythm and lead and inspired me to stick at it.
I remember going over to Highams window to ogle at a Harmony bass (Ronnie Lane/Spencer Davis style) which I think was 45 guineas and way out of reach for a kid earning a measly £2.50 a week
Geoff Parkinson |
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My first guitar came from Highams (for 38 guineas). An anonymous (probably Japanese) twin pickup solid in red and white with tremelo. No maker's name on it except for a fancy letter 'Z'at the top of the neck. It's still in the back of the wardrobe!
Also ventured into Reno's some years later and ended up with a 'Ranger' 12-string acoustic. still got this also. I'm a hoarder!
Tom Bancroft |
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Oxford StreetOne of the older establishments, mainly school/brass instruments - with tuition rooms downstairs. I tried to learn sax with Ken Rodway (of Rodway/Leyland Duo) but I was a dreadful student and rarely turned up.
Stock & Chapmans, was run by a dear old lady affectionately known as Ma Chapman. She pulled me, and many others, out of the crap after having equipment stolen.
Danny Hardman
"It was run by an old couple, the woman was nearly deaf and gave a Drum Kit to a mate of mine. You can imagine the conversation:
"I've come to pick me drums up"
"Yes dear there they are"
" I haven't paid for them."
"Yes dear those are the ones"
"Sorry you haven't heard me, I haven't paid for them"
"Yes dear they're over there, just take them."
"Don't you want me to pay for them?"
"That's right they're paid for, you can take them."
Oh *?£%& it I'll take them then. Thank you"
Stuart Bunyan
The shop was run by Martha ( Ma ) Chapman. She wasn't deaf - it was her husband who had a huge deaf-aid clipped to his coat which was always whistling and squeaking!
Ma Chapman was a love.
She would often give me a pair of drumsticks and once lent me a new Premier 2000 snare drum for a week to see if I liked it. Everything was on H.P.then and I was way behind with my payments on my kit but she never gave me a hard time. She pulled many musicians out of the crap. I must not forget Brian who also worked there and kept an eye on us musos.
Moe Green |
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Situated on the corner of Oxford Road and Portland Street, the Music Exchange stocked sheet music for those muso's who could read.
Me? I can remember buying Tommy Quickly's "Walk the streets at night". Why? It was reduced.
Now situated in St. Peter's Square.
Wasn't there another in Boot's Arcade? |
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Tony Saville's shop was located round the corner from Oxford Street facing the side of the Midland Hotel - a later shop opened in the mid 70s. Terry Smith, an excellent electronics engineer previously with Barratt's, went to work for Tony.
I bought an AC30 Top and a 2X12 cab from there. Tony always did a great deal and would drag you into the shop to try some instrument he just bought in.
Sadly he was killed in a Go-carting accident and although Tony's wife tried to keep things going they had to close about a year later. |
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| Thos. Reynolds and Son Ltd |
"Mainly a 'brass band' shop but still one of the oldest music shops in town based in Salford. My Cousin Tom Cheadle worked there as an apprentice repairer from age 14 and stayed in the instrument business with Reynolds, Barratts and 'Band Instrument Supplies' in Leeds till he retired 6 years ago."
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| RSC |
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RSC may not have been the leaders in group gear but many aspiring muso's would have spent their hard earned cash at the shop on a small but acceptable range of mikes, amps, stands and leads. |
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OK, it wasn't a music shop but it does have good links to the Manchester scene. The most obvious is that it was owned by the family of Kevin Godley of Mockingbirds, Hotlegs, 10cc and Godley-Creme.
Its also important as many musos would have bought their record decks and hi-fi's from there. Not a great reason but the pic is just so good and brings back many memories. |
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There used to be a great musical instrument shop in Gortoncross Street off Hyde Road in Gorton Manchester.
It was called Nield and Hardys and sold loads of guitars, amplifiers, drums etc. It was a sad day when Gortoncross Street was knocked down. In fact the whole of Hyde Road shops from Clowes Street right up to Gortoncross Street were demolished and turned into a 'Green Belt'. What a waste!
Belle Vue also came down around the same time or just after, if my memory serves me well! Another disaster!
Leslie Kenneth Marsden
Neild and Hardy was originally on Underbank in Stockport. They had a major fire and had to move.
Tont Roberts |
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I first went in the shop in the late 50's and incredibly very little has changed,.
This I was told was because the building is listed.
As I mentioned in a previous email I bought my gear from
Stock & Chapmans and Barratts.
John Hynes (Pete Maclaine & The Clan 1963-1964) |
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