I admit it. I'm a sucker for all sorts of coin-operated amusements and have had collections of stuff in my time - motto: "You can never have too much stuff"...
Jukeboxes have all but died out anywhere except pubs and even there they are down in the cellar with just one or more remote control selection boxes on view. To my mind you can't beat an old jukebox that has all the workings on show. When I was a youngster they were in almost every cafe and amusement arcade. They started to disappear in the late 1970s when amusement arcade machines started making sounds of their own. The video game industry has a lot to answer for...
The jukebox above is a classic Wurlitzer 1015, the jukebox with bubble tubes and panels changing colour. It has featured in countless movies and the homes of numerous movie stars! First made in 1945 (and therefore playing 78 rpm records) it has remained in production almost ever since. You can still buy these machines to play either 45 rpm records or CDs.
Jukeboxes for me, have to play records. I have a couple of CD jukeboxes but they just look like a rather oversized CD player without the drawer. They have a player that takes CDs from a carousel tray and they are purely functional rather than decorative. With the advent of mp3s I hardly ever use them now. Certain records bring jukeboxes to mind immediately and they are the ones we used to hear time and time again during holidays in Blackpool, Bridlington or Great Yarmouth. The Beatles Yellow Submarine is one. The Shadows Atlantis is another. Bizarrely, Sheena Easton's 9 To 5 is another - because in that case we found a late model jukebox in a cafe in Great Yarmouth when Gill was a toddler and she loved that song!
I have a 1979 Ami R1-2 jukebox filled with 1960s 45 rpm records. It gets played every now and then and it is pure nostalgia. I must save up for one with a visible mechanism!
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments must be passed by moderator before appearing on this post.