‘We’ve all gone nostalgia crazy’: The company bringing jukeboxes to a new generation

Jukeboxes used to be all the rage in the 1950s and 1960s, but in the last few months, filled with a sense of apocalypse and a longing for the past, jukeboxes are back again, writes Andy Martin. And it’s Chris Black that’s bringing them back

Chris Black with his beloved jukeboxes (Sound Leisure)

If you’re in the market for a 1950s petrol pump straight out of an Edward Hopper painting, or a fridge in the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle, or speakers that resemble the gas tank of a Harley Davidson, or a picture of the Beatles made out of vinyl records, look no further: you will find them alongside the glorious retro jukeboxes at the Sound Leisure showroom in Leeds. It’s an Aladdin’s Cave of design nostalgia.

There are the iconic “Wurlitzer” machines with the domed top from the Forties, the square ones from the Fifties and Sixties. Or their latest, a collaboration with Marshall, paying homage to their amplifiers, combining vinyl with bluetooth. It’s like a walk through history. “We don’t manufacture jukeboxes,” says CEO Chris Black, “we make memories.”

Satisfied customers send him pictures of everyone gathered around the jukebox. “It becomes like part of the family,” says Black. I can believe it. These machines are battleship build quality, designed to last to the next generation. They are effectively unbreakable. The protective plastic panels are made out of the same material as riot shields. “Some people ask us, ‘How long will it last?’ I tell them, we don’t know – we’ve only been building them for 43 years.”

There are three generations of the Black family at Sound Leisure. Alan Black, Chris’s father, now chairman, set up the company in 1978. As a kid he built his own transistor radios and amplifiers. “He was always into the technology, more than the music,” says Chris. “He couldn’t tell one tune from the next.” When he invented a sound-to-light device, he shopped it around – showing it off to people like Billy Butlin – but nobody was biting. Not until he installed the kit in a jukebox and people went mad for it.

That was the beginning of the Black family’s lifelong love affair with jukeboxes. Black senior began working for a business that rolled jukeboxes out around the country and exported them to South Africa. But Alan Black had an ambition: he wanted to build “a real British jukebox”. The ones he was installing were either American or German. In 1980 he produced their first vinyl-playing jukebox. Mission accomplished. Then, two years later, CDs came out and it was back to the drawing board.

At that time they were mainly delivering jukeboxes to pubs. And then Harrods called and said they thought that some of their customers would buy them. Sound Leisure jukeboxes are still in Harrods today and there is a dedicated “Harrods” machine with extra artwork. Chris Black bought back the first machine to be sold in Harrods and now has it sitting proudly in his front room.

Chris Black says there will do any colour a client wants (Sound Leisure)

Chris himself left school at 16 and dreamed of becoming a painter-decorator. His dad said, fair enough, but could you come in and help out during the holidays before you get started? “Thirty-four years later,” says Black, “it’s been a long summer holiday.”

Their first digital machine dates from the 1990s. “When we showed it off at exhibitions, people would lift the table cloth to have a good look – they thought there must be someone underneath pressing the buttons.” What they imagined was the last vinyl jukebox left the factory in 1992. “After 2000, everyone wanted digital,” says Black. But in 2015 they got a new distributor in the US and he said there was a rumour vinyl was making a comeback. “We were gobsmacked,” says Black. They had to pull out the old machines out and dust them off and start all over again.

They also had to stop Phil and Dave from retiring. Phil and Dave were the two men who, together with Mr Black senior, built the business up. They were there from the very beginning and they fondly thought they had moved on from vinyl. But history got stuck in a groove, so they had to keep on spinning the discs too – and train up apprentices in the lost arts. “I can’t believe we’re building vinyl jukeboxes again,” says Black, but they are more popular than ever, especially the flat-topped Fifties machines.

Virtually everything is customised, inside and outside, analogue or digital (Sound Leisure)

One thing that amazed me: you can get an LP-playing jukebox too. The old “45s” still come as standard. If you want the best of both worlds, old and new, you can get one of the old jukeboxes with a touch screen built in that enables you to whistle up any one of thousands of tracks from the 1960s on. “We’ve got a solution for everybody,” says Black. One guy came in the shop and said, “It’s got to match the kitchen.” No problem – they do any colour. Virtually everything is customised, inside and outside, analogue or digital. “You are building your jukebox,” says Chris Black. They’re doing one now with someone’s coat of arms on.

It’s not often I’m reduced to tears in interviews, but I had to stop and reach for a tissue when I heard about Alice. As well as Harrods, Sound Leisure deliver their jukeboxes to care homes. Alice is a lady of advanced years, living in a care home, and suffering from dementia.

When a young female fitness instructor turned up to try to rouse the residents and keep them mobile, Alice had clung on tight to her chair and refused to move. But as soon as they switched on the jukebox and pressed the buttons, she leapt to her feet and started dancing around the jukebox. “It has an amazing effect on people suffering from dementia,” says Chris Black. “They find they can remember. It’s the shape of the machine as well as the music. It’s the emotion they remember.”

Sound Leisure have just had the busiest two months ever. Perhaps inspired by a sense of apocalypse now, we’ve all gone nostalgia crazy. “They don’t make them like that any more!” is a lament you might hear from time to time. But now, like some argumentative panto character, you can reply, “Oh yes they do.”