Sound Leisure: A Family Business Bridging Jukebox History and Modernity

A family-owned company is marking its first year of manufacturing one of music’s most recognizable jukeboxes, having successfully reintroduced the distinctive player to the market. Leeds-based manufacturer Sound Leisure, which has been producing jukeboxes since 1978, collaborated with the German Wurlitzer family last year to create the 1015 model, a design originally launched in 1946. Managing director Chris Black, 54, stated that these machines, which offer the flexibility of playing seven-inch vinyl records or connecting via Bluetooth, “sell themselves.” He commented, “Even though they look like they’re a machine from the 1950s, the technology inside them is bang up to date.” He further added, “We’re exporting them all over the world, and we’re getting photographs and videos from cruise lines, stately homes, from just normal everyday people that have saved up for one and it’s something they’ve always wanted.” The business was founded by Mr. Black’s father, Alan, who began making jukeboxes for the British market because American alternatives were too large for traditional pubs. In 1984, the company made the decision to start recreating “classic” machines. He explained, “Nobody had seen them for a long time. “Wurlitzer had gone into Chapter 11 [Bankruptcy] in America in 1974. So really the old dome-top machines like everybody thinks of as a jukebox, the ones with the bubbles, nobody had really seen one of those in a pub for probably 30 to 40 years.“When they went out of business, the man who was building them literally had two containers left.“Somehow, and I still don’t know how, my father tracked this man down in Mexico and said, ‘Do you have any cabinets left from when it all closed down?’“He shipped the cabinets across to the UK and that’s where our love of classic jukeboxes started.” New mechanisms were then incorporated into these machines, which were sold to pubs across Leeds, Hull, and Sheffield. He recounted, “They took off really well, which was a problem because we only had 60 cabinets. So we then had to try and devise a way of manufacturing these dome-top cabinets.” During the 1970s and 80s, Sound Leisure’s primary customers were British pubs and hospitality businesses. However, today, the company exports 70% of its products, with the vast majority now going into private homes. Mr. Black observed, “It’s a complete role reversal from where the business started.“New York at the moment is one of our hottest cities. There’s orders coming in every day from New York. Germany’s flying, America in general, Saudi, UAE is going really mad, and Europe.” The company, situated in Crossgates, is now recognized as a supplier of luxury goods, a classification Mr. Black admits feels quite unusual. He reflected, “I only saw that about two weeks ago and had a bit of a smile to myself.“We’ve come from being a manufacturer in Leeds to be supplier of luxury goods.“It’s quite a strange thing to be alongside some of these really high-end names that everybody knows on the high street and we’re moving into that space now.” Alan, Chris’s father, remains actively involved, attending the office every day. Mr. Black shared, “He thinks we’re crazy because we only want to work six days a week.” He continued, “But it’s his toy shop now. He tinkers, he designs, he’s still inventing, still involved heavily with every machine that goes out of the factory.“He loves to get involved with things and it’s always trying to improve things, so he never sits still. He never stops trying to make it sound better or work better. All his life is devoted to this industry.” Chris’s son, Alexander, 24, handles the digital marketing, and his brother, Michael, 50, also serves as a director within the company. He noted, “Within the business, we’ve got a range of other families.“We have brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, mums, dads, all working alongside each other in different sections of the business. We are really, truly what you would call a family business because it’s not just ours and we all class each other really as a family.” The company proudly displays its very first machine at the factory, located in the reception area, where it plays Mr. Black’s favorite song. He commented, “It can play anything you want, but Blueberry Hill’s my favourite, by Fats Domino.“It always sounds really good on a jukebox because a jukebox sound is completely different to a hi-fi.“If you get the old 50s records on the jukebox, they just sound absolutely stunning.”