A short time after the end of the Second World War, Doug Dobell took over the running of
his family's antiquarian bookshop at 77 Charing Cross Road and turned it into London's best known jazz shop. Musicians and jazz record collectors alike haunted the store, and it soon became one of London's jazz landmarks.

Doug was a keen record collector himself and a regular at all the leading London jazz venues. Dobell's was the only shop where you could buy Tempo records, the label of the most important British modern jazz recordings of the 1950s. In the early '60s he formed the 77 record label and recorded some of the up and coming musicians of the day as well as some who had been around a little bit longer.

Almost every visiting major jazz musician seemed to have made a point of visiting him at the shop and he was one of the best loved personalities on the London jazz scene. There is an interesting snippet in Alun Morgan's sleeve notes on Ben Webster's 'Saturday Night At The Montmartre' Lp; Doug Dobell's second hand record department manager, John Kendal, tells how Ben would often negotiate the narrow stairway down to John's place in order to hear Tatum or Waller. A highly emotional man, Ben would get carried away when listening to records by his favourite pianists. "They didn't ought to have died" he would murmur, wiping tears from his eyes as he listened.

A certain 'Blind Boy Grunt' recorded part of an album by folk singer Richard Farina in Dobell's basement. This turned out to be non other than Bob Dylan of course.

Doug Dobell died in 1987. He had been one of the major movers and shakers on the '50s-60s London jazz, blues and trad scene. His shop was one of the hippest record shops in London and a mecca for jazz, blues and folk fans where they could find music just not available anywhere else.

So... if an LP you win or buy from Candy's Classics comes with a Dobell's sticker on the back, and many do - be happy! It's a tiny part of jazz history!

More information at the Museum of London:

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/OnlineResources/X20L/objects/record
.htm?type=object&id=64652