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/

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