My Passion: Appreciation for vinyl continues to spin decades on

Dean Raynor, commercial manager at Rotherham road surface specialists SteelPhalt, explains his love of vinyl.
Dean Raynor: Part of the pleasure really is in looking at the cover.Dean Raynor: Part of the pleasure really is in looking at the cover.
Dean Raynor: Part of the pleasure really is in looking at the cover.

I’ve always liked music from a young age but I suppose I first got into vinyl when I was about 13 and my best friend, for his birthday, was given an Alba stereo record player and two records, the soundtrack to Hair and Led Zeppelin II.

Led Zeppelin II was what really got me into that type of music, Progressive Rock, and I have loved it ever since, bands like Pink Floyd and Focus, especially their song Hocus Pocus. My favourite bands, though, have always been Wishbone Ash and Yes.

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After that my parents bought me a Bush record player and speakers and I had that in my bedroom.

Records were quite expensive to buy then so you had to collect all your pocket money and paper round money and then you’d go to Brittains in Rotherham and in the record booth you could listen before your bought – I used to love being in there on a Saturday afternoon.

I do still have some of those records but when I got married I gave some away and it was only years later that I started collecting again and going to record fairs, trying to rebuild the collection.

When CDs started coming out I did buy them like everybody else but it’s not like having a proper record in your hand and there’s nothing quite like a proper record sleeve.

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For me part of the pleasure really is in looking at the cover – the image might be the same but you can’t really appreciate it on a CD in the same way and some of the design work is absolutely fantastic.

I was at a dinner with Rick Wakeman and I had the chance to sit and talk to him and I asked him what he felt was the difference between vinyl and CD and he explained that with vinyl there is a bigger range of sound compared to CD.

I think my children quite appreciate the music to be honest and I actually caught my son playing one of my albums when he was home from university – I think that says a lot.

I must have something like 900 records now and I’m still looking for new titles to add to that all the time. Some people might collect records for their value but I collect them for the music and to listen to them – I would never buy a record I’m not going to listen to.

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