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Barratts of Manchester music shop

PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:35 pm
by cockroach
I found this whilst looking for something else...includes pics of Hank, John Farrar, so there's the Shadows connection..

Although I'm in Oz, I'm sure there will be some folk from the North of England on this site who will remember this shop..

There's a good 'gear' page on this site too!

http://www.manchesterbeat.com/shops/mus ... rratts.php

Re: Barratts of Manchester music shop

PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:39 pm
by davec
I knew it well: they sold me my first guitar -- a second-hand 12-String acoustic.

This is a good read on the same site:
http://www.manchesterbeat.com/mystory/b ... higham.php

DaveC

Re: Barratts of Manchester music shop

PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 4:11 pm
by JimN
The immediate area was well-provided with music shops. Oxford Street / Road had Barrett's, Reno (a great place for secondhand Fenders), A1 Sound with its underground caverns chock full of everything you could imagine and Stock & Chapman (more of a traditional band instrument shop). About nine hundred yards away was Mamelok in Deansgate.

Barrett's was the first place I ever saw a Gibson Les Paul Custom on display when they were reissued in 1968. I remember I was over in Manchester one day looking for a good secondhand electric 12-string, mainly a Burns, but saw two Fender Electric XIIs in Barrett's. They were priced at about £225 each and were knocked about a fair bit (this was in 1979). I was going to buy one, even at that price, until a friend who was with me told me that Hessy's in Liverpool had one in at a lower price. I bought that one the next day for £170. The friend bought an Ampeg Portaflex 50 watt (1 x 18) bass amp at A1.

Re: Barratts of Manchester music shop

PostPosted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:28 pm
by StuartD
I bought a Schaller Rotosound from there.

Good shop

Regards

Stuart

Re: Barratts of Manchester music shop

PostPosted: Fri Jan 19, 2018 3:49 am
by cockroach
BTW...I should have pointed out that the parent website of the Barratts shop thread (Manchester Beat) has a wealth of items of interest.. IMHO... :)

Re: Barratts of Manchester music shop

PostPosted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 2:28 pm
by GrahamH
Hi all.

Originally, Mamelok's (where in 1967 I bought my first and only AC30 with money saved from my paper round!) was also on Oxford Rd, a store as big as Barratt's. That small area of Manchester had four such shops within about 2 minutes' walk of each other, where my schoolfriends and I would spend many an hour gazing longingly at the goodies in the windows!. Mamelok's later moved to a smaller shop on Deansgate.

The Manchesterbeat website as a whole is well worth a visit - masses of info, but a word of warning. If, like me, you get irritated by people who should know better claiming there was no British pop before the Beatles, and that everything happened in Liverpool and nowhere else, you'll be even more so after browsing this site.

Graham