Tributes have been paid to a former Brighton record shop owner who spent 56 serving vinyl music lovers from near and far.
George Ginn ran Brighton’s oldest record shop, The Record Album, in Terminus Road, Brighton, for 56 years from 1962 to 2018.
He died on Sunday (11 June) at the age of 93 at Bramble Cottage Residential Care Home, in Patcham, after a fall.
Mr Ginn was well known and much admired, not just in Brighton but among those in the wider film and theatre music and record collecting world.
Until his retirement in 2018, aged 88, Mr Ginn was Brighton’s longest-established record dealer.
The Record Album’s co-directors said that he had an unrivalled knowledge of film soundtracks and original theatre cast recordings.
He dealt only in vinyl, they said, and observed the music industry’s peaks and troughs, trends and curios from the early 1960s.
He established The Record Album, which was founded 75 years ago, as one of Brighton’s much-loved cultural landmarks.
To see two short videos on The Record Album website in which Mr Ginn talks about his life and the stars who visited the shop, such as Keira Knightly and Radiohead, click here.
Two long-standing Brighton and Hove residents, Keith Blackmore and David Chappell, bought the shop from Mr Ginn in 2018 and have posted a tribute to him on the shop’s website.
Mr Blackmore said: “The great vinyl revival of the last 20 years may have caught many of us by surprise but not George Ginn.
“He had been a steadfast champion ever since he took over The Record Album 60 years ago and never wavered in his view that vinyl records were the greatest way to listen to music, even when CDs and digital streaming seemed for a while to have gained the upper hand.
“When I was his customer, his advice on what to buy (and, just as importantly, what not to buy) was invariably right and like many people over the years I heard new things in new ways whenever I visited his shop.
“I’d often just drop in for a chat then find myself still there two hours later, listening and learning.
“George loved music, records and his shop.”
He leaves a wife, Yvonne, and three daughters.
