Life long love of collecting records

MUSIC MAN: Paul Ellery, director of Music at Nga Tawa.

It's the summer of 2015 in Europe and the Glastonbury Festival has just been and gone with rave reviews for many different acts and, of course, Kanye West repeatedly informing us that we are watching "the greatest living rock star on the planet", even after festival fans petitioned to ban his performance.
What a time it would be to own a record shop in London and catch the buzz about such current events from artists and punters alike.
Years earlier Paul Ellery, now Director of Music at Nga Tawa Diocesan School, would have been able to find out all the gossip on the street surrounding these great festivals and performances, and probably if Kanye's whole set should have indeed taken place in front of a bedroom mirror as implied. Recounting stories of meeting and chatting with artists and musicians such as Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, William Burrows, The Clash and Richard Thompson to name just a few, or selling entire collections of Beethoven's works to Arabian bankers, Paul reminds me his first record player was a Monarch he received at the age of five.
His fascination with everything vinyl came at an early age with Patti Page's How much is that doggie in the window? and his perfectly placed "woof woofs". Originally from Te Aroha Waikato, as a very young child Paul showed a remarkable ability to find records for his parents by labels such as Coronet for Guy Mitchell or RCA for Johnny Ray and Elvis Presley.
He started playing the piano at age nine and was accepted and taught by the infamous Janet McStay.
Recording and accompanying vocalists for Radio New Zealand as well as numerous performances saw him shift to the UK for further study and work in a record shop in Kensington to fund his fascination with music.
This record store would soon be purchased with business partner Dan Bridgman and a deep knowledge of collecting all styles of musical recordings soon saw the store flourish and Paul's personal record collection begin grow to what is now over 30,000 albums, 45's and 78's. Along the way Paul's fascination with jazz legend Bill Evans' early recordings have inspired him to record and release an album of Bill Evans' compositions and also have the opportunity to meet with original Evans drummer Paul Motion and bass player Marc Johnson at The Village Vanguard Club in New York City.
So what exactly is it that makes a record collector? Is part of it hereditary - sometimes parents were hoarders of jazz or classical music?
It could be a fascination of the record cupboard, a place of rest and recreation, one side full of classical and jazz LPs, and the other filled with popular stuff, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Woodstock, Cream, Bob Dylan or those wonderful classical album covers; Casals Festival at Perpignan or Prades, Brubeck's Time Out or Time Further Out, full of mystery, perhaps a moment of the music inside reflected in the cover art. Fingers along the spines, pulling favourites out to look - Cream's Wheels of Fire, with its silver gatefold sleeve, Exile on Main Street, the Beach Boys' Surf's Up.
You don't have to actually play the records, just looking at them and their sleeves, holding them in your hands, turning them over and reading credits / lyrics is sometimes enough. Music is nostalgic; it influences the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you perceive the world.
Through an open mind, open ears and this multi-faceted exposure, constantly learning about many different musical genres. Paul Ellery knows a thing or two about music, having worked with radio, record shops, record labels, music education, independent music marketing and as an artist, producer and international musician, all of these experiences have culminated in an outstanding career.