Foxley’s Records of Kilburn

This small shop in Exeter Parade, Exeter Road was next to the Kilburn Underground Station from 1955 to at least 1974. It was run by Ray ‘Professor’ Foxley, a quietly spoken and very talented New Orleans style pianist who played with the Mick Mulligan, Ken Colyer and Chris Barber jazz bands. His nickname of Professor was a tribute to New Orleans stride pianists such as ‘Professor Longhair’. Ray was born in Birmingham and after the War he led bands in the Midlands before coming to London in the 1950s.

Ray and his wife Doreen lived at 68 Whitefriars Avenue in Harrow for many years. He died in London in 2002.

My friends and I would go to the shop regularly on a Saturday to listen to records in the tiny booths which were covered with acoustic pinboard walls. I bought my first jazz records by the Modern Jazz Quartet and Gerry Mulligan there. My friend Dan Shackell remembers getting Gene Vincent’s ‘Lotta Lovin’ in 1958.
Site of Foxley's Exeter Parade in 2012 (Dick Weindling)

Paul Vernon, a rare record dealer and blues expert, who lived in Cricklewood and Maygrove Road Kilburn, said that in the 1950s it was very hard to get R&B records. Ray Foxley privately pressed 25 copies of Amos Milburn’s fabulous ‘Chicken Shack Boogie’ (1948). It sold out in a morning, so Ray asked a friend who worked on transatlantic ships to buy him more R&B records in New York. People came from all over the country to meet, talk and buy their records in the club atmosphere at Foxley’s.

Here is film of Amos and his band (which was basically Little Richard’s band), playing Chicken Shack Boogie featuring some wonderful jive dancing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY6_6H9aNlU

There is more information about Ray on the Sandy Brown website:
http://www.sandybrownjazz.co.uk/YouSuggest/RayFoxley.html

You can hear Ray playing ‘Blues For Ken’ here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd7qnsrXI9Y

The record shop continued under different ownership until at least the early 1980’s.

Hanspeter Kuenzler, who lived in Kilburn, worked there about Xmas 1981. He told me:

“Looking at the pictures of Ray Foxley, I’m certain that it wasn’t the man who ran the shop when I worked there. This man was an embittered, fat, elderly man with a round face and trouble with his legs. He certainly never spoke of a career as a musician of any sort. In fact, he didn’t strike me as a man who was even vaguely interested in music.

One day a little boy came in and wanted to buy a Michael Jackson record as a present for someone. The guy didn’t have it in stock and tried to persuade the boy that the new album by ‘Charles and Dave’ (Chas and Dave) would most definitely go down just as well.

I also remember that he wanted to re-price every record in his shop. He explained the new system but didn’t trust me to get it right. He insisted that I had to hold up every single record and ask: ‘This one?’ This, in turn, pissed him off more and more as we went along. In the end he offered just over 30 quid for ten days work which I immediately spent on records in his shop”.

Have a look at the interactive maps which show the record shops, studios and 250 musicians who lived in North West London:
https://www.notjustcamden.uk/maps/

Kilburn National Club

This popular music venue was at 234 Kilburn High Road, on the corner of Messina Avenue. Many famous musicians including Johnny Cash and David Bowie played there. We look at the original building which was the Grange Cinema, and what happened when the National closed and was taken over by two different church groups. Grange Cinema The Grange was a large mansion standing in grounds of nine and a half acres and with a frontage to Kilburn High Road. It was the home of Ada Peters the widow of a wealthy coach builder who made coaches for Queen Victoria . Following Ada ’s death in 1910, the property was sold. The new owner was Oswald Stoll, a major name in the entertainment world who had already built the London Coliseum in St Martin ’s Lane, near Leicester Square . Stoll wanted to erect another Coliseum theatre in Kilburn. In fact, progress overtook him and instead of a theatre, the 2,028 seat Grange cinema opened on 30 July 1914 . This remained the biggest cinema in Kilburn until th

Smith’s Crisps

This is the story of how Frank Smith and his friend Jim Viney, began in a small way in Cricklewood and built the large and successful company of Smith’s Crisps. Early years Frank was born in 1875, in Hackney. His parents had left their native Suffolk by the mid-1860s for London, where his father ran a fruiterer and florist business. By 1881 the family were living over their corner shop at 128 Stoke Newington High Street, moving to Kingsland Road by 1891. Frank started working when he was 10-years old and went with his father to Covent Garden each morning to buy produce for their shop. Frank married Jessie Minnie Ramplin in Southwark in 1902. The couple and their six-year old daughter Laura were living in Mona Road Deptford in 1911, when Frank gave his occupation as ‘commercial traveller, confectionery’. Soon after this he went to work for a wholesale grocer by the name of Carter, in Smithfield. Carter had a side-line making potato crisps and Frank saw great potential in the product and

Clive Donner, film director

Clive Donner was born in the Priory Nursing Home at 43 Priory Road West Hampstead, in January 1926. He grew up in 31 Peter Avenue, Willesden Green, where his parents Alex and Deborah Donner, lived for most of their lives. Alex was a concert violinist and Deborah ran a dress shop. Clive attended Gladstone Park junior school and Kilburn Grammar school. He became interested in film when he accompanied his father to a studio recording session. While at Kilburn Polytechnic he made an 8mm film about a boys’ sports club. In 1942 he was working as a shipping clerk when his father who was recording the music for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), asked Michael Powell the director, if he could find a job for Clive at Denham Studios. After several rejections he got a job as a junior assistant editor for the Sydney Box film On Approval (1944). He gained experience and formed a close friendship with Fergus McDonell, who later edited several of Donner’s films. Clive wa

History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Search This Blog