“These beautiful, large black disks just spinning and spinning creating the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard… Mum would be cooking away in the kitchen when exquisite music would bellow into my little ears. From as long as I can remember I’ve been singing along to Marlena Shaw “Go Away Little Boy,” The Jones Girls “Nights over Egypt,” Gwen McCrae “90% of Me is You” …to name a few tracks.”
“Stacks and stacks of records proudly and neatly displayed on our oak french dresser, for my mum’s picking. My mother’s collection was a large one… her music taste has always fascinated and inspired me. The rarest of grooves, soul, reggae, funk, hip hop, R’nB was in this extraordinary collection.
She must have spent hours and hours in record shops trying to find these rare works of art. I remember she said she used to order certain records and wait weeks, sometimes months for them to arrive from America. But oh, was it worth it, even then at the age I was I knew there was a distinct difference between the sound of a record player compared to my little “boombox” as my mum called it.
The record player crackle sound still to this day screams “soul music” to me. Although CDs and iPods are convenient, they just aren’t the same. I wish I had my entire iTunes catalogue on vinyl. I wouldn’t possibly have the space in my tiny flat, but I’d be willing to throw away half my shoe collection for it!
My mum was like an in-house DJ picking the most amazing songs one after the other… It’s no surprise that my mother’s taste in music had such an impact on my own taste. To be honest it always has and it always will.
She introduced me to Jill Scott at around age 9 or 10, she was always on the pulse when it came to fresh new artists. I was specifically soul music mad by this point adding Eryka Badu, D’angelo, and Lauryn Hill to my own record collection whilst my friends at school were listening to Britney Spears. I look up to my mum so hugely, even now I value her opinion so highly on records that I make myself. She has that ear, yano?
It’s crazy that, 11 years later, she got to play my own record on her famous record player. In my eyes that was an honour in itself considering who has been played on that thing. Hopefully that is the first of many… x”
—Harleighblu
Harleighblu’s debut release will be available via Tru Thoughts in Summer 2013.
