GRANNY TAKES A TRIP

Granny Takes A Trip was an iconic store in King’s Road, London, opened in early 1966 by young londoners Nigel Waymouth and Sheila Cohen. The shop brought a radical, iconoclastic approach to the fashion and style of the time, and paved the way for many of the designer boutique outlets that followed in the 1960's and afterwards.

The shop also became famous for its constantly changing façade. At one time the entire front was painted with a giant pop-art face of Jean Harlow (see picture below). Overnight, that was replaced by an actual 1948 Dodge saloon car which appeared to crash out from the window and onto the forecourt. Over the next three years contrasting changes such as this took place at regular intervals.

Granny Takes A Trip remained open during eight years, until 1973. Now, 35 years later, it has opened again last spring.

This album, compiled by owner Nigel Waymouth, is called Conversation's Dead Man (named after a comment from one of the store staff) and pulls together 18 tracks covering jazz, soul, blues and some contemporary rock of the time. It's perhaps not as experimental or cutting edge as you might think, but as Weymouth says: «You have to remember that 1966 was before rock as we know it - we didn't have that library of music - black American music was our music. We were of the same generation as the Beatles and the Stones, and we were listening to the same records.»