A
n anonymous hand puts a quarter in
the jukebox. Click, whir, needle drop.
The Righteous Brothers’ ‘You’ve Lost
That Lovin’ Feelin’ prompts Tom
Cruise to rise from the bar, sling his
bomber jacket over his shoulder, and
make for the sound source. Whereupon Kelly McGillis
quietly sidles in and Top Gun reaches its denouement.
Had the scene played out with McGillis tinnily blaring
“You never close your eyes anymore...” from her phone,
it might just have lacked a certain something.
What is it about jukeboxes? “It’s an event,” says Chris
Black. “The lights, the theatre of seeing a record being
lifted, put on the turntable, the needle coming across; it
frames the music.” As MD of jukebox purveyors Sound
Leisure, he knows a thing or two about such matters.
“It’s like owning an Aga: not essential, but pretty cool.
When you do get one, and friends come round, they tend
to bypass you and go straight to the jukebox. Customers
say that, even if they’re not playing them, they’re always
switched on because of the mood it puts into the house.
Everybody smiles when they see one.”
Chris has been around them all his life. Father, Alan,
co-founded the business in Yorkshire in 1978. “From
four years old I’d be dragged round as he serviced
machines in pubs and clubs, and I’d stay in the car with
my crisps. When I was 16 I came to work just for the
summer holiday and, 33 years later, I’m still here.”
Pubs were the predominant customers back then,
with side orders from Harrods. The rise of the CD
meant the company made its last jukebox in 1991. Or
so everyone thought. In 2016, as a new generation fell
in love with watching music going round and round,
Sound Leisure launched its Vinyl Rocket jukebox.
Despite concessions to modernity – remote control,
Bluetooth compatibility – the essentials are unchanged.
“When we redesigned the machines,” says Chris,
“they initially sounded just like a hi-fi system, because
we had new engineers in, younger lads doingit for
the first time. We said ‘We don’t want that, weneed
bass, warmth – it’s not hi-fi, it’s a jukebox’. It tookeight
months to tune the cabinet, speakers, amplifier,but
now it just sounds fantastic.”
Another part of jukeboxes’ appeal, he says,isthat“a
lot of people are sick of throwaway technology.Thisis
something you’ll pass down through your family.”Just
as the company and its traditional craft skillshavebeen
handed down, with experienced employees wonttostay
for years and Sound Leisure actively trying topromote
manufacturing to the younger generation. “Wework
closely with the local schools and technical college.
We’ve got our own metalwork division, our owncabinet
makers – don’t call them joiners, or you’ll geta chiselin
your neck – and we do apprenticeships.”
The week we talk, a revolution is taking place: 33
revolutions per minute, to be precise, as the company’s
first album-playing machines leave the Yorkshire
factory. Previous orders have come from everywhere
from Japan to Dubai, Jägermeister to Elvis Presley’s
estate; 75% of output is exported.
The private customer base, meanwhile, is aged 18 to
- Everyone from people who’d saved for yearstothose
new to jukebox delight. “We had a pop-up shopinan
arcade in Leeds last year,” says Chris. “You’d seepeople
literally stop in their tracks – you could lipread‘Wow!’
As people left, they’d shake your hand and say‘That’s
been fantastic!’. When people come out of a shoeor
handbag shop, they don’t do that. As we say, music
never looked so good.”
soundleisure.com/classic-jukeboxes
“It’s an event. The lights, the
theatre... It’s like ownin g an Aga:
not essential but pretty cool.”
CRAFTSMANSHIP
