2 minute read
The warehouse King
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“Viva Las Leicester”
Elvis is back in the building: Steve’s vinyl vault revealed
It might not be the biggest but when it comes to record collections, one of our colleagues certainly has one of the rarest.
Warehouse Operative Steve Holt’s
450-strong vault of discs spans musical history from Frank Sinatra to Pink Floyd with Creedence Clearwater Revival in between. But get him on to the subject of Elvis and the father-of-three, who celebrates 35 years with DHL in March 2023, is suddenly all shook up.
The 63-year-old collector, who started as a Bulk Driver covering his home site in is a passionate fan of The King. the 50s and the way that by the 70s he’d artist,” he says. Among his most recent prized possessions – most of them under lock and key in a secure storage unit – is a reissue of an Elvis fans’ record that cost him a cool £250.
Huge strides
He says: “It’s a double album with a lot of talking and outtakes that showed you how the songs developed with each take. You almost feel like Elvis is in the room.”
Steve has more than 90 Elvis records £6,000. “I don’t think about how much I’ve spent on my collection. They’re an investment and they’re incredible to look at with all the artwork and gatefold information – not like CDs.”
Vinyl has been outselling CDs for the sound quality is far better, revealed which he recorded after the Army in the 60s, The ’56 Sessions and Elvis in Memphis, from the 70s,” he says. “I’d also want If I Can Dream, which he did at the end of the ’68 Comeback Special. It’s so emotional.”
At work Steve, who has three sons and seven grandchildren, turns his hand to anything: “I make sure the drivers are okay in the morning, look after bulk deliveries, scan in the hold bay and do the third-party work. It’s a great job and the business has made huge strides in making life easier for us with scanning. I love it here.” The rarest and most expensive record ever sold was a copy of The Wu-Tang Clan’s seventh studio album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which went for US$2 million
Ink King Steve with some of his rare records and his tattoo of the Memphis star
A Fab Four phonograph facts
2The biggest-selling album of all time is Michael Jackson’s Thriller, with 32 million copies sold worldwide in million plus.
3NASA sent two gold records of music, voice greetings in 55 languages and sound samples of birds and oceans into space on board the
4Brazilian businessman José Roberto Alves Freitas has the world’s largest collection of six million vinyl records.
