Record Mirror

Record Mirror was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the NME, it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in Record Mirror in 1956, and during the 1980s it was the only consumer music paper to carry the official UK singles and UK albums charts used by the BBC for Radio 1 and Top of the Pops, as well as the US Billboard charts.

The title ceased in April 1991 when United Newspapers closed or sold most of their consumer magazines, including Record Mirror and Sounds, to concentrate on newspapers. In 2010 Giovanni di Stefano bought the name Record Mirror and relaunched it as an online music gossip website in 2011. The website became inactive in 2013 following di Stefano's jailing for fraud.^[1][2]

Early years, 1954–1963

Record Mirror was founded by former Weekly Sporting Review editor Isidore Green,^[3] who encouraged the same combative journalism as NME. Staff writers included Dick Tatham, Peter Jones and Ian Dove. Green's background was in show business and he emphasised music hall, a dying tradition. He published articles and interviews connected with theatre and musical personalities. His interest in gossip from TV, radio, stage and screen was not well received.

On 22 January 1955 Record Mirror became the second music paper after NME to publish a singles chart. The chart was a Top 10, from postal returns from 24 stores. On 8 October the chart expanded to Top 20, and by 1956 more than 60 stores were being sampled. In April 1961 increased postage costs affected funding of the returns and on 24 March 1962 the paper abandoned its charts and began using those of Record Retailer, which had begun in March 1960.^[4]

The first album charts in the UK were published in Record Mirror on 28 July 1956.^[5]

For two months in 1959, Record Mirror failed to appear due to a national printing strike. On its return, Green renamed it Record and Show Mirror, the majority of space devoted to show business. By the end of 1960 circulation had fallen to 18,000 and Decca Records, the main shareholder, became uneasy. In March 1961, Decca replaced Green with Jimmy Watson, a former Decca press officer. Watson changed the title to New Record Mirror and eliminated show business. Circulation rose, aided by an editorial team of Peter Jones, Ian Dove and Norman Jopling. He brought in freelance columnists James Asman, Benny Green and DJ David Gell to implement a chart coverage including jazz, country and pop music. This eventually included the official UK Top 50 singles, Top 30 LPs and Top 10 EPs, as compiled by Record Retailer. The paper also listed the USA Top 50 singles, compiled by Cash Box, and charts such as the Top 20 singles of five years ago and R&B releases.

Features such as Ian Dove's "Rhythm & Blues Round Up", Peter Jones's "New Faces" and Norman Jopling's "Fallen Idols and Great Unknowns", combined with New Record Mirror's music coverage, helped circulation rise to nearly 70,000. New Record Mirror was the first national publication to publish an article on the Beatles, and the first to feature the Rolling Stones, the Searchers, the Who, and the Kinks. Bill Harry, founder and editor of the Liverpool publication Mersey Beat, wrote a column on Liverpool music. Other columnists reported on Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle. New Record Mirror took an interest in black American R&B artists. The paper maintained articles on old-style rock and roll.

1963–1982

During 1963 Decca Records' chairman Edward Lewis sold a substantial share of Decca's interest to John Junor, editor of the Sunday Express. Junor was looking for a paper to print by four-colour printing developed by Woodrow Wyatt in Banbury, before printing the Sunday Express in colour. Junor moved Sunday Express production to Shaftesbury Avenue and New Record Mirror became more mainstream. In November 1963, the paper returned to the name Record Mirror, and featured a colour picture of the Beatles on the cover, the first music paper in full colour. Although the first run of 120,000 sold out, the following issue fell to 60,000. Junor replaced Jimmy Watson by Peter Jones. Circulation recovered and the paper successfully continued with the same format throughout the 1960s. Following acquisition in 1962 of NME by Odhams, Record Mirror was the only independent popular music newspaper.

During 1969 Record Mirror was acquired by Record Retailer and incorporated into Record Retailer offices in Carnaby Street. The acquisition saw the magazine change printers, drop full colour pin-ups and increase its size to a larger tabloid format. Jones continued as editor, supported by Valerie Mabbs, Lon Goddard, Rob Partridge, Bill McAllister (the first music journalist to herald Elton John and Rod Stewart), and broadcast-specialist Rodney Collins, who had moved from Record Retailer. Collins's links with pirate radio gave Record Mirror a continental circulation and a Dutch supplement was frequently included. Terry Chappell resumed as production editor and Bob Houston supervised the change in format. Group editorial manager Mike Hennessey contributed the first interview with John Lennon. The Record Mirror photographic studio became independent, under Dezo Hoffmann.

In a studio outtake of a recording of "Sally Simpson" on the 2003 release of the deluxe edition of the Who's 1969 album Tommy, Pete Townshend said, "I read the Record Mirror". When Keith Moon presses him to tell what he read in the Record Mirror, Pete says that the paper said that he was known by the other members of the Who as "Bone".

In 1975 Disc was incorporated into Record Mirror – among the items brought to Record Mirror was J Edward Oliver's cartoon, which had been running in Disc for five years, and which continued for a two years in Record Mirror. By 1977 Record Retailer had become Music Week and Record Mirror was included in a sale by Billboard magazine to the Morgan-Grampian Group. Both offices moved to Covent Garden. Morgan-Grampian moved to Greater London House, north London in 1981.

1982–1991

In 1982 the paper changed from tabloid to glossy magazine. During the next nine years it had a more pop-orientated slant and containing features and comic articles, such as:

• Great Pop Things, a weekly comic strip by Colin B. Morton and Chuck Death which began in 1987 and continued in NME after Record Mirror's closure
• Star-spotting gossip pages, written by Johnny Dee, which also featured comedy articles
• Lip – gossip column written by Nancy Culp, and later Lisa Tilston
• "Spot The Imposter" – photoquiz with a misplaced face in the crowd
• "Phil's World Of Wigs" – each week a picture of Phil Collins appeared with new novelty haircuts, the artwork being created by art director Ian Middleton in response to readers' suggestions
• "Pete's Poems" – a weekly poem by record producer Pete Waterman (as edited by Neil Wilson)
• "Sonia's Best Buys" – value for money purchases apparently made by late 80's singer Sonia
• "The Stone Roses New Line-Up" – each week a new photo of a gurning celebrity would be added to a photo of the Stone Roses 1989 line-up, for example Harry Enfield as his character "Loadsamoney"
• "B's Cheeseboard" – various types of cheese apparently reviewed by Soul II Soul star Jazzie B
• "Star Scene" – pop stars answering questions about items in the news
• "Tanita and Guy's Psychic Joke Hut" – pictures of the heads of The House Of Love singer Guy Chadwick and singer-songwriter Tanita Tikaram telling each other jokes: both were famed for their serious natures in real life

Inclusion of music charts

In 1984, when British tabloids started bingo competitions, Record Mirror became the first music paper to experiment with something similar. Record Mirror was the only magazine during the 1980s to print the weekly US singles and album charts, with analysis by chart statistician Alan Jones.

Music charts included

• UK Top 100 Singles Chart
• UK Top 75 Albums and Compilation Albums Charts
• Vintage chart from a bygone year
• US Billboard Singles Chart
• US Billboard Albums Chart
• US Billboard Black Singles Chart
• Music Video Chart
• 12-inch singles Top 20 Chart
• Compact Disc Top 20 Chart
• Reggae Chart (dropped in 1987)

Inclusion of disco column

In June 1975 DJ James Hamilton (1942–1996) started writing a weekly "disco" column, which in the 1980s expanded into a general dance music section known as BPM. Hamilton had started DJing in London in the early 1960s, and had been writing about US soul and R&B for Record Mirror since 1964, originally as Dr Soul.^[6] After a visit to the Paradise Garage in the 1970s to see Larry Levan play, he came back to the UK a convert to mixing records, unknown at the time. To promote his views, he developed his onomatopoeic style of describing a record, and from 1979 he started timing and including the beats per minute of records he reviewed.^[6] Record Mirror became the first of the major music weeklies to pick up on acid house in the mid-80s. The pipe-smoking character Mr Acid Head was later picked up by a rave-based record label and used as sleeve art.

DJ Directory

Hamilton later included the DJ directory.

Article headings included in the DJ directory

• Beats and Pieces - news and gossip from the dance music world
• Hot Vinyl - track listings of new records
• "Club Chart" (previously known as the Disco Chart)
• "Cool Cuts" Chart
• Pop Dance Chart
• Hi-NRG Chart

Take over and closure

In 1987 Morgan-Grampian was acquired by United Newspapers (now UBM). On 2 April 1991 Record Mirror closed on the same day as its United Newspapers sister publication Sounds, with the last issue dated 6 April 1991. The final cover featured Transvision Vamp. Eleanor Levy, the final editor, believed the decision to close the magazine was "taken by accountants rather than people who understand music. When I explained to one of the management team that our strength was dance music, he thought I meant Jive Bunny."^[7]

James Hamilton moved to the trade magazine, Jocks, which was changing to a dance magazine as DJ Mag. Record Mirror continued as a four-page supplement in Music Week. In later years the supplement concentrated on dance music: dance charts were later incorporated into Music Week. Hamilton continued to review record for the supplement until two weeks before his death on 17 June 1996.^[6]

Employees

1950s/1960s

Journalists

• Norman Jopling
• Graeme Andrews
• Derek Boltwood
• Roy Burden
• Terry Chappell
• Rodney Collins
• Lon Goddard
• David Griffiths
• Tony Hall
• Peter Jones
• Bill McAllister
• Valerie Mabbs
• Ian Middleton
• Barry May
• Alan Stinton

Photographic department

• Dezo Hoffmann
• David Louis [Louis Levy]
• Bill Williams
• Eileen Mallory
• Alan Messer
• Feri Lukas
• David Magnus
• Keith Hammett

Production Editor

• Colin Brown

1970s

Journalists

• Barry Cain
• Ronnie Gurr
• Mike Gardner
• Jan Iles
• Tim Lott
• Alf Martin
• Mike Nicholls
• Sheila Prophet
• Rosalind Russell
• John Shearlaw
• Daniela Soave
• Penny Valentine
• Chris Westwood
• Paula Yates – wrote a column in the paper titled "Natural Blonde"

Photographic department

• Andy Phillips
• Paul Slattery

1980s/1990s

Business Team

• Mike Sharman - Publisher
• Steve Bush-Harris
• Carole Norvell-Reed
• Geof Todd

Journalists

• Stuart Bailie – now a DJ on BBC Radio Ulster^[8]
• Tony Beard
• Edwin J Bernard – later became a writer and policy consultant for the human rights of HIV-affected people^[9]
• Graham Black
• Lysette Cohen
• Nancy Culp (real name Gill Smith, 1957–2009) – formerly a press officer for Rough Trade Records before moving into journalism: it was Morrissey (of Rough Trade artists The Smiths) who affectionately nicknamed her after The Beverley Hillbillies actress Nancy Kulp.^[10] Culp was also responsible for Record Mirror's gossip column Lip for much of the latter half of the 1980s before moving to the NME. She died from cancer on 6 April 2009.^[11]
• Johnny Dee
• Charlie Dick
• Ian Dickson
• Alan Entwistle
• Tony Farsides – later became editor of the Record Mirror supplement in Music Week
• Malu Halasa
• James Hamilton
• Tim Jeffries – became editor of Jocks and oversaw the transformation to DJ Mag^[12]
• Alan Jones
• Eleanor Levy – editor, 1989–1991. When Record Mirror closed down she and Andy Strickland (both keen football fans) co-founded the now-defunct football magazine 90 Minutes
• Roger Morton – became manager of the band Razorlight^[10]
• Lesley O'Toole
• Betty Page (real name Beverley Glick) – editor, 1986–1989. Started her career as the secretary to Sounds' editor in 1977 before graduating to interviewing musicians for the paper, moving to Record Mirror in the early 1980s. It was at this time that she became a well-known face on the London club scene and began calling herself "Betty Page" after the iconic 1950s model Bettie Page – she and her friend Nancy Culp were known as the "Rubber Goddesses" as they often dressed in fetish outfits, and both appeared as models on the front cover of the second issue of the fetish magazine Skin Two in 1984.^[11] At the end of the decade she moved on first to the NME, and then left the music business altogether to write for The Observer and The Sunday Express. Now runs her own business as a life coach for women.^[13]
• Pete Paisley
• Robin Smith
• Andy Strickland – combined journalism with his other job as guitarist for indie rock bands The Loft and later The Caretaker Race. Later edited the online music magazine Dotmusic.
• Lisa Tilston
• Chris Twomey
• David Whitelock - Later on managed indie/punk-funk band APB and others. Partner in Voice studios in 1989-92, Music Industry Consultant for government for 4 years, programmer at Lemon Tree in Aberdeen in 1999. Founded Vibraphonic (festival) in 2003 and radio station of same name in 2004, station now morphed into PhonicFM in 2007. Headed up Festivals and Event teams for both City Of Exeter and Bristol 2003-08. Now lives in Canada.
• Jane Wilkes - wrote for RM between 1986 and 1988 before going into P.R. at Polydor Records. Formed own company, Monkey Business P.R. with Pippa Hall in 1997.

Photographers

• Kevin Murphy
• Parker (aka Stephen Parker, now a DJ under the name Spoonful Sound System)
• Joe Shutter

See also

• UK Singles Chart
• Hit Music
• Music Week

References