David Hepworth

I once spent several years of my life trying to track down a deleted LP by the 1970s progressive rock band Van Der Graaf Generator. I can still remember my sheer joy when I finally located the album in a second-hand record shop in Liverpool. It turned out to be one of the group’s less impressive offerings but this in no way diminished my sense of satisfaction at finally having found the wretched thing. I now owned it and that’s all that mattered (must be the hunter-gatherer in me).

I mention this as it’s pertinent to something touched on in David Hepworth’s history of the rise and fall of the 12 inch LP: the pleasure of not being able to hear a record because it had been deleted, or was perhaps just unavailable in your local store, and having to doggedly seek it out. The chase being almost as pleasurable, possibly more so, as actual possession. This is, of course, now an unknown pleasure in a world where pretty much all music ever recorded is permanently available at our very fingertips.

As told by Hepworth the glory years of the vinyl LP ran from 1967 to 1982. As this happens to coincide with the heyday of what is now known as ‘classic rock’ this book is as much a celebration of that genre as the LP itself. He also looks at the way changes in technology changed the sound and nature of the music that was made and how it was consumed.

A Fabulous Creation is part memoir and there are lots of autobiographical reminiscences of Hepworth’s life as a vinyl junky. Pure nostalgia, of course, but he recreates with wit and a certain poignancy an age in which the physical LP was at the centre of millions of young people’s lives. He recalls hanging around in record shops for hours at a time as an impoverished student just to be close to records, gaze at the often astonishing artwork on the sleeves, marvel at the names of bands unknown to him and imagine what sort of music they could possibly make, and hold the records in his hand. It reminded me that listening to music used to be as much a visual and tactile pleasure as an aural one.

This is an amiable evocation of an era when record buying was a hugely lucrative mass market rather than a niche one with an uncertain future. It wasn’t that long ago but in many ways it reads like an account of a lost civilisation. It was a time when many of us music obsessives said, with our latest album held proudly under our arm, ‘it’s only the music that matters’. When we arrived in the digital age and only the music remained, in an infinite virtual library of recorded music beyond the wildest dreams of even the most avaricious 1970s teenage audiophile, we were shocked to realise that the music certainly wasn’t all that had mattered to us after all.… (meer)

David Hepworth knows his subject and, as he understands, those of us who grew up with music in the late 60’s / 70’s love a a nostalgic look back at times before social media engulfed everything. Though, having said that, it’s great to be able to immediately summon up & hear the music as he talks about it. In many ways it was very boring being a teenager in the early 70’s: Sunday = T.V.’s Songs of Praise. But perhaps for this very reason music was so important, central & a huge emotional escape.

Hepworth’s chapters are by month as he relates the important music goings on, and what a defining year. The Beatles’ members going solo, The Who, Carole King, Led Zeppelin, Marc Bolan putting on the glitter, David Bowie emerging….

I would say this was page-turning but I listened to the audio. Fast-paced & full of facts & interesting anecdotes.… (meer)