A Love Letter to Records

‘When did you first start collecting records?’ is a question that, as a DJ and a collector, I hear all the time. It’s one of the first questions you get asked in interviews, especially since the vinyl ‘boom’ of the last decade. In 2020, record sales overtook CDs for the first time since 1986, so it seems that the word vinyl is very much on a lot of people’s lips.

For me, an obsession with subcultures I wasn’t alive to be part of is really what kickstarted my love for vinyl. I was brought up in a household that exclusively listened to 50s music: doo-wop, rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll. In my dad's famous words ‘if it ain’t rockin’ it ain’t right’. My early entrance into the oldies occult had me fawning over certain records from my parents’ collections throughout my pre-teens. It was the touch and the feel of being able to pick up these records which I loved.

By the age of 19 I was living in Southampton, studying history, and in the thick of my northern soul stage. Unbeknownst to me, not everyone knew about 60s music, Jackie Wilson, and the Wigan Casino. At the afters I would always start with a lick of northern in the background. One night I vividly remember my friend Fran nonchalantly saying, “you should do a radio show playing all this type of music”. It was only a passing comment that she won’t remember saying, but until that very moment in our student halls kitchen, it was something that had never occurred to me.

So, two years later, that’s exactly what I did. I finally pulled together ‘Scarlett’s Doo-Wop to Northern Soul Show’, and that first show instantly lit the lightbulb above my head. I finally knew exactly what I wanted to do. It wasn’t until I had local legends Soul 45 on to do a mix that the DJ penny dropped. ‘I have that’, ‘I have that too’, I insufferably exclaimed after they wheeled up each and every 45. I remember Mark saying that if I had all these records, why was I not playing them out? Me, a shy redheaded girl playing records in front of real life judgmental people? But it didn’t take long to convince me and I marched up to my uni’s student bar with a Tesco bag full of 45s. I didn’t realise then that it would take me on such an incredible journey and bring me to where I am today.

Leaving university, I was a new woman: a DJ, a radio host, and a true record collector. Buying and collecting records has opened doors for me in ways I never thought could exist. I’ve made countless friends from varying scenes. I’ve debated and written about the ‘reissues vs original pressings’ dispute that still has the soul scene in a stronghold. I’ve held panels on women’s places in record shops and I’ve created mixes and series dedicated to the format. Up next for me are even more Vinyl Factory lives, even more time spent in record shops and an even bigger record collection. Because at the end of the day, vinyl was and still is my first love.