SITTING just behind Brighton Station, The Record Album has been a city institution since 1948.

Its current owner is 86-year-old George Ginn, a former RAF servicemen, who purchased the store in the late sixties and has now enjoyed five decades there.

the shop on Terminus Road opens its doors six days a week, revealing a treasure trove of collectable film scores and rarities with Mr Ginn behind the counter.

As vinyl records declined in popularity and countless independent music shops were forced to shut their doors, The Record Album and Mr Ginn remained.

But now with the vinyl revival is in full swing with more than two million records sold in the UK alone last year, the gentlemanly owner said people are starting to rediscover the magic after suffering through years of "digital racket".

Mr Ginn said: "You get this beautifully designed artwork, and then you open it up and there is a certain pleasant aroma.

"There is a mystique to it, you take it out of the packet gently, lower the stylus, hearing a little bt of surface noise, then settle down on the settee with the sleeve in your hand and immerse yourself in the experience.

"The interest in LPs has been revived and people are digging out their record decks and collections which have been left mouldering in the loft.

"They have realised what a gorgeous sound it is, and without a question it is the finest music medium ever produced."

He said his youngest granddaughter "put it very nicely" when she said “Granddad, CDs just look so old fashioned”.

Mr Ginn's love of soundtracks and scores was sparked while he was at boarding school in Wales after being evacuated in the Second World War.

And his love of records developed while he was in Germany with the RAF as an air traffic controller and it was there he got his first gramophone - dealing in records throughout the fifties before buying the shop.

Mr Ginn celebrated his birthday last Saturday and has recently renewed the lease on the shop for another five years.

GEORGE'S TOP FIVE PICKS

Once Upon a Time in the West by Ennio Morricone

The Argus:

SCORES from Western films pre-Ennio Morricone were all of a type.
They all had this feel of a wagon train trawling across the prairie.
But when a Fist Full of Dollars and A Few Dollars more came around with his score we were absolutely enthralled.
He employed odd instruments and human voices, it was totally different to all the scores we were used to.
This one was just a brilliant score, it was wonderful to see Morricone finally recognised with an academy award for The Hateful Eight.

Sinatra '65 by Frank Sinatra

The Argus:

"TO choose a Sinatra LP from the sixties is awfully difficult.
"He recorded so many but this was his second coming.
"Throughout that period he had the pick of the best of all the great band leaders, arrangers and bands available.
"Nelson Riddle gave him a totally different sound, in my opinion he saved Sinatra's career.
"Some particularly good tracks on this one are When Somebody Loves You, My Kind of Town, and Luck Be a Lady from the show guys and dolls."

Kings Road by Erich Wolfgang Korngold 

The Argus:

DURING the war I was at boarding school in North Wales after being evacuated and the headmaster was a film buff, so we used to troop off to the cinema in the nearby town of Barmouth.
Kings Row was one of the films showing there and it left a great impression on me, in a way it triggered my love of soundtracks.
The composer was Korngold, like many had fled from Hitler's Germany.
It is a score that can be enjoyed completely divorced from the film itself. It is enthralling.

Sir Thomas Conducts Volume 2 by Sir Thomas Beecham

The Argus:

"I AM a Sir Thomas Beecham aficionado and this is a very good collection of tracks.
"This is one of the first records I have bought, it would be from the late fifties or early sixties.
"I cannot be clear because there is no recording date on it, but I think it is one of the better pictures of him on the cover.
"This record also introduced me to the composer Frederick Delius."

The Jazz Singer by Al Jolson

The Argus:

"THIS film was the very first talkie, so Al Jolson, being one of the top American performers of the day, was selected to star.
"The soundtrack is pretty dire being the very first to go with a talkie in 1927.
"But when after seeing his biography film The Al Jolson Story, I was thoroughly addicted and I used to buy every one of his records I could get my hands on.
"What makes it so special from a collector's point of view is because it was the very first."