I still remember catching the train to Claremont on Saturdays, a bit of cash in my pocket from fishing money, heading straight to the record store at Cavendish Square. Back then, the thrill wasn’t just in the music—it was in the hunt. You never knew what you might stumble upon. With no YouTube, no Spotify, no Rolling Stone magazine floating around our sleepy South African suburb, the only real way to discover music was through word-of-mouth at school and those precious few spins on a decent record player at a friend’s house.
Some of the albums I picked up were gold. Others? Dust-gatherers. That was part of the game.
The guy behind the counter at the record store—he was your guide. Your walking Wikipedia before Wikipedia existed. He’d let you know which bands were worth the money and which album covers were more exciting than the contents inside. Without much guidance from local radio (which, let’s be honest, was more light pop than Led Zep), these record store wizards were the closest we had to music journalism.
Still, I remember catching the occasional gem on the radio: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly, Easy Rider (or at least the soundtrack), Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin, and of course, Creedence Clearwater Revival—who, to this day, are still worth a spin on any day. Van Morrison too.
There were albums that stuck with me, that helped define my early musical education: Pictures at an Exhibition by Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Rick Wakeman’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII; Four Way Street by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Yes, Close to the Edge. The greats. The explorers. The complex, the moody, the majestic.
Back home, I’d spin them on my father’s Yamaha turntable—solid sound and speakers whose brand I can’t quite remember but whose tone I never forgot.
Later, when I moved to the “Golden City” (Johannesburg), there was Hillbrow Records, and then a place in the Rosebank Mall I think was called Plum Records—can’t say for sure, but it had the same magic. The same smell of vinyl, cardboard sleeves, and possibility.
Then came CDs. Then MP3s. Video killed the radio star, and pixels quietly retired the vinyl star. Now vinyl’s back—but mostly for the collectors with wallets fat enough to justify the R700 price tag on a reissue. That’s not what I want to talk about.
What I want to talk about is this: we now have something just as good as that Saturday morning record store experience. His name is Chris Prior, and he’s known as The Rock Professor.
Every Thursday, Chris releases a meticulously curated rock and blues show—streaming, downloadable, and completely addictive. I usually listen to it a day late via PodOmatic, but it’s become a regular fixture in my week. I’ve even downloaded whole batches onto an MP3 player for long road trips—Cape Town to Joburg, Joburg to Cape Town—with nothing but his voice and the music guiding me across the Karoo.
No ads. No station dropouts. No weak playlists. Just pure rock and blues—rare, beloved, forgotten, essential.
And here’s the kicker: Chris’s show is now ranked #1 in the world for Blues and #2 for Rock on PodOmatic. That’s not just good—it’s staggering.
It reminds me of the old days, really. Listening to Chris’s show feels like walking back into that record store at Cavendish Square. He’s the guy behind the counter again, turning you on to stuff you’ve never heard before, giving you the stories behind the songs, unearthing old gems and sliding you the best of the new.
So yeah, I miss flipping through record bins on a Saturday. But with Chris Prior around, it’s like that world never really went away—it just changed its format.
Rock on, Professor. Long may you spin.
