Did you know that Leeds is home to one of the world’s leading manufacturers of jukeboxes? We spoke to Chris Black, managing director of Sound Leisure about how they make more than just machines. 

Most people of a certain age – and I count myself in this bracket – will have memories of a jukebox. Whether that’s in a pub, a club or a students’ union, at some point in your life you will have no doubt congregated around one of these music machines, probably spending too much time deliberating about what song to play and then taking great satisfaction when that choice came on. 

One of my earliest memories of a jukebox was regular family visits to an American diner that had a Wurlitzer-style jukebox – which was free to use – and mainly consisted of Motown songs with a bit of Elvis thrown in for good measure. My sister and I used to take great delight in taking requests from our parents. Smokey Robinson’s ‘Tears of a Clown’ was always a big favourite.

Later in life there was the students’ union at university – very Britpop heavy (it was the mid-1990s) – and then frequent Friday post-work drinks at a pub that had one of the best jukeboxes I’ve come across. As we were normally one of the first in (the pub didn’t open until 5.30pm), we normally got free reign and would shovel enough money in to give us a good hour or so of our own personalised tunes, everything from The Cure and LCD Soundsystem to Massive Attack and Talking Heads.

And then there was my first visit to a friend’s house. I was immediately impressed by the fact her dad had a jukebox in the corner of the living room – and they had a swimming pool. Sadly, I never got to pick a song…

It’s these types of memories that Sound Leisure have built a business on and is something they show great pride in. 

Initially founded by inventor and electronics engineer Alan Black in 1978, Sound Leisure manufacture classic jukeboxes in the heart of Leeds. After starting in a garage in Hunslet, the business now occupies a factory and showroom just outside Crossgates and is still owned and run by Alan and his family, making it the oldest single-ownership jukebox company in the world.

After becoming the first British company to design, develop and build a commercially viable and widely adopted jukebox platform in the 1970s, Sound Leisure went on to pioneer the early development of digitised music platforms in the 1980s and were responsible for the reintroduction of vinyl jukeboxes in 2016.

In 1986, Alan brought his eldest son, Chris, on board, although it wasn’t quite what the younger Black had in mind for his future career.

“I was intending to become a painter and decorator,” Chris recalled. “We were coming down York Road about two days after I’d finished my exams and my dad said, ‘we could do with a hand in the factory, why don’t you come down?’ Thirty-nine years later… it’s been a long summer holiday!”

Chris is now managing director at the family business, although his father still plays a very active role.

“He’s 80 in June and is still in the building six days a week, he loves it, this is his playground,” said Chris. “He’s still coming up with some crazy designs, he’s a born inventor and can come up with ideas that are light years ahead, like he’s proved so many times. It’s been quite a journey with him.”

Chris’s brother, Michael, is also a director and works at Sound Leisure as does his wife Cath and his son, Alex . It’s a real tight-knit team.

“Whether they’re family or not, everyone is part of the team,” added Chris. “We’ve all got a part to play. Once you get in here, there’s not many people leave. We’ve got staff who are well into their seventies and a lot have been here for 30 years-plus.”

Sound Leisure make two different styles of classic jukeboxes: the familiar 1940s dome-top ‘Wurlitzer’ style and the 1950s flat-top ‘Rocket’ machine. Both can be used with either vinyl (7” or 12”) or CD and all machines have Bluetooth so you can stream your favourite music platforms through them. They may look retro but inside they’re packed with the latest technology.

Whilst Sound Leisure was formed to initially supply jukeboxes to the hospitality trade, they how sell 90 per cent of everything they manufacture directly to somebody’s home. Of this, 65-70 per cent are exported to the likes of America, Germany, Switzerland and, more recently, Dubai.

The machines don’t come cheap – you’re looking at between £10,000 and £12,000 for a new jukebox – but you only have to undertake one of the factory’s tours to see how much work and how much skill is involved in making one of these classic machines. 

Every machine is hand-built and such is the build quality that the jukeboxes last for generations and are often passed down through families. 

“We tell the apprentices when they start that when they build a jukebox, it’s got to outlive them,” said Chris. “We want quality and we need passion. You can’t build these and not get excited.”

The factory is home to its own wood and metal shop, it has electronic design teams, software engineers, creative teams, a plastics shop and a repair centre. Sound Leisure also has a branch down in Nottingham where they make all the electronics – amplifiers, LED lighting, circuit boards – but everything is put together in Leeds. 

One of Sound Leisure’s biggest selling points is that every machine can be customised to a client’s own personal tastes, whether that’s through colour, lighting or specific branding. As everything is built on site, the company can accommodate the majority of requests, however unusual.

There was a specific request from American country singer Luke Combs who wanted a bespoke machine to use in the VIP area on his tour. Guests were given tokens to put in the jukebox which automatically played a song and depending on which one it played determined which prize they won. 

“You could win a keyring or a hat and then if you got the gold prize… we had to write special software to control the room so that the lights in the room would flash, streamers could go off, true American style,” recalled Chris.

You can view many of Sound Leisure’s customisations in the on-site showroom in Leeds. It’s the type of room where you can’t help but smile when you walk into it. Jukeboxes line two walls which are also adorned with retro neon lights and pictures of their many customisations. 

Sound Leisure are now officially licensed to use the ‘Wurlitzer’ brand name and have an official tie-in with Marshall amplifiers – their ‘Rocket’-style jukeboxes are incredibly popular. You can view and experience both styles at the showroom and, trust me, the sound is superb.

“The Wurlitzer name carries so much kudos all over the world,” said Chris. “When we tell people we build jukeboxes, nine times out of ten they say ‘do you build a Wurlitzer?’. We can now say that we do and it’s our flagship machine.”

In 2016 Sound Leisure was named as one of the top 100 manufacturers in the UK, as judged by a panel of leading industry experts alongside companies such as McLaren Automotive, Airbus and BAE Systems. They were awarded the Yorkshire Post ‘Exporter of the Year’ award in 2019 and the highly prestigious ‘Manufacturing Guild Mark’ in 2020, which is only bestowed on companies which demonstrate high standards across seven assessment criteria including design, product development, manufacturing capability, sustainability and financial stability.

Over the years, Sound Leisure has welcomed TV companies and film crews to the factory and have featured on some well-known programmes including The Discovery Channel’s ‘How It’s Made’ and The Science Channel’s ‘Machines – How They Work’.

“We say we manufacture memories,” continued Chris. “It’s not just about building a jukebox, it’s your memories of what you remember around them, everyone has a song that means something.”

It’s something that he gets asked a lot but does Chris have that ‘one song’?

“On the vinyl machines I think something like Fats Domino ‘Blueberry Hill’ sounds fantastic,” he said. “But I’ll change every week, next week it could be Johnny Cash, it depends what mood I’m in.”

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