Another lively season for CHELSEA space starting with the private view for Dobells Jazz Folk Blues. There was a fantastic crowd out to celebrate this iconic record shop and its founder, Doug Dobell, including CHELSEA space regulars and Dobell’s staff and customers going back to the 1940s.

Brian Harvey, who was one of Doug Dobell’s earliest staff members, was quite moved when he saw the original Dobells record rack on loan from Museum of London.

He recalled installing the rack in the bookshop of Doug’s father, Arthur, at 77 Charing Cross Road and how the records gradually took over the entire shop! Opened by Doug’s grandfather Bertram in 1887 Dobell’s was one of the first antiquarian bookshops on the Charing Cross Road. Bertram was the first tenant in this new building constructed after London slum clearances and the shop kept the family name until it was demolished in 1981.

Dobell’s was very popular with the art crowd. Stephen Willats has a collection of 78 rpm discs on Dobells’ own 77 Records label and was a regular visitor to the shop. Stephen, who showed The West London Social Resource Project at CHELSEA space, is opening his new show this week at Modern Art Oxford

We were very honoured to see Don and Monica Sollash at the opening, Don opened Dobell’s Brighton store in 1957 and married Doug Dobell’s daughter Monica in 1958.

Don can be seen with many iconic Jazz musicians in photographs in the exhibition, Monica also worked administering the family firm and they were both still working at Dobell’s until its final closure in 1992.

Artist Bruce McLean, who showed Process Progress Project Archive with us in 2006, worked in the Jazz venue the Bulls Head in Barnes and remembered meeting important American musicians at Dobells including Roland Kirk. He is seen here with art writer Guy Brett who has just finished work for the excellent monograph on Rose Finn-Kelsey published by Ridinghouse Editions. CHELSEA space Director Donald Smith has recently contributed a chapter on working with Bruce McLean for the book All This Stuff: Archiving The Artist

Musician Jona Lewie, famous for his song You Will Always Find Me In The Kitchen at Parties, was another regular at the shop and is good friends with Martin Colyer, son of Dobell’s stalwart staff member Bill Colyer.

Martin, who studied at Chelsea School of Art has written an excellent blog about the Dobell’s show and private view and has included some rare photographs from his family album

 

We were honoured to see the American painter Peter Halley in CHELSEA space.

Halley’s excellent new show has just opened at Waddington Custot Galleries in London and the catalogue essay is by our good friend Jo Melvin who curated the show The Ping Pong Dialogues at CHELSEA space

This Wednesday saw the first of our ‘open deck’ sessions for vinyl record enthusiasts. These events are being organised by Leon Parker of the British Record Shop Archive who has worked tirelessly with CHELSEA space to make the Dobell’s show happen, ever passionate about the importance of independent record shops, irrepressibly energetic in sourcing materials and making contacts.

The vinyl session was followed by an excellent talk by Brian Peerless who worked at Dobells from 1962-1992. The talk included some great history, lots of good music, and rarely heard anecdotes. Some of the audience who knew Dobell’s and Brian added to the event with lively interjections and stories of their own.

The vinyl sessions are every Wednesday afternoon throughout the show and the next talk at CHELSEA space is with music photographer David Redfern 6-7.30pm Wednesday 15th May. The event is free but RSVP to [email protected] is essential.

The show was also timed to coincide with World Record Store Day and here is a photograph of an advertisement taken in the USA by our good friend Jason Brown who generously ran CHELSEA cab for us until he moved to Nashville Tennessee.

Record Store Day originated in USA and was quickly adopted in the UK and elsewhere. This advertisement was photographed in Paris just to prove Record Store Day is now a worldwide event!