Ooops - Wrong Street !

Mods outside a discothèque in Peckham watching a passing rocker

Any Price For Style - Part One

Life International July 27 1964

Restless, ‘Rich’ and Bored, British Youth Reflects a Widespread Problem

THE ‘MODS’ vs THE ‘ROCKERS’

Thrice this year, at holiday time, segments of Britain’s youth have exploded into senseless, savage rioting, and details of Britain’s police – ready to wield their rarely used truncheons and equipped with fast cars – await with understandable concern the coming of the Bank Holiday of August 3.

Comprising the mobs were « Mods » like the lads shown at the left, who fancy themselves modern, and «Rockers » like the youths below and at right, who derive their name from their taste for Rock’n’Roll rhythms.

Rival groups, they scorn each other’s modes and manners but both hold a tremendous, virtually irresistible attraction for Britain’s adolescents and represent a widespread phenomenon : they have counterparts among France’s Blousons Noirs, Sweden’s Raggare, Russia’s Stilyagi and America’s street gangs.

« It’s a key decision in the life of every British teen-ager who has reached the maturity of 14 or 15 years » cables Life correspondent Tim Green from London, « to choose the side he will join ».

Will he become a Rocker, clad in a black leather jacket garnished with shining studs, blue denims and heavy boots, doing ‘the ton’ (a speed of 100 miles per hour) on his motorcycle along Britain’s inadequate roads ? Or will he become a Mod – a dandy in pastel suits, shirts with tab collars and fancy cuff links, and a dashing boater on his head as he putt-putts on his scooter ? He can of course opt to be a ‘Mid’ but a ‘Mid’ these days is definitely out.

« Whichever side they choose or stumble into – and most elect to be Mods – Mods and Rockers have two things in common. First, British teen-agers have far more ready cash to spend than did those of any preceding generation. In the few glorious years between starting work and getting married, they can just give ‘Mum’ a few shillings every week and the rest of their wages is theirs to spend on high living. Many teen-agers, with overtime, can earn up to the equivalent of $ 60 a week, and the combined spending power of the nation’s teen-agers is $ 2,500 million a year. They have for the first time enough cash to buy themselves scooters, motor bikes or even second-hand cars, and this makes them the most mobile teen-age generation that Britain has ever known.

If the word goes out that there will be fun or a punchup at Clacton, Brighton or Margate, Mods and Rockers can be there in droves within hours.

« The second point Mods and Rockers have in common is a sense of frustration and boredom. For both, the fun is the actual journey – zooming along the roads, swerving in and out of traffic. At both ends of the journey, they are bored. The most commonly hear phrase among the two groups is «’What else is there to do ?’

« Lacking anything constructive to occupy their minds, they stand or wander endlessly around the cafés of their home towns or the beaches of seaside resorts. Though they do not set out deliberately to fight each other, inactivity and boredom often lead to the taunting of one side by the other, and quickly to battles which become riots. » (The taunts often include references to homosexuality, but actual homosexuality is apparently rare among both groups, and « birds » - i.e., girls – are more or less popular.)

« Of the two groups, » Green continues, « the Rocker is definitely the conservative. His clothes are unchanged from year to year, he is still twisting, and he still likes ‘Rock’n’Roll’. He strongly defends his black leather uniform with the question ‘How do you ride a motorbike in Mods’ clothes ?’ and the explanation ‘You can’t change a plug and get all greasy in a lightweight suit. This gear is washable and you can wear it year in and year out.’ His bike is his first love. ‘I’ve had a bike since I was 16,’ says John Clarke, 20. ‘I saved up for it at school. I wouldn’t give it up for a car. If you have a car you just sit there in a traffic jam. But on a bike there is a sense of pleasure and a sense of speed all the time. You can have more fun on a bike, swerving in and out.’

« ‘There’s more skill to riding a bike,’ says Charlie Williams. ‘You can just sit in a car and steer, but on a bike you’ve got to concentrate all the time.’ »

Man in mirror. Bob Yeats, 19, tries on new outfit in a Stephens shop. He paid $ 13.50 for boots alone.

The Mods

Artist. A Mod who is a commercial artist, Roger Earl,18, earns $ 25 aweek, spends much of it in Carnaby Street shops that sell apparel which helps wearer « stand out in a crowd ».

Apprentice. In from Peterborough to update wardrobe in Carnaby Street, Dave Richens, 17, is engineering apprentice who earns $ 15 a week. He wears pointed boots with heels 2 ½ inches high.

Electrician. Colin Bond, 18, spends $ 9 of $ 20 weekly earnings on clothing. Mods explain, « You’ll meet a mod who will say ‘I haven’t a penny to my name’ – but he is very smartly dressed . »

Auto Worker. David Payne, 20, earns $ 55 a week in an auto plant. « I give about $ 7 to me mum », he says « and I spend a lot of the rest on clothes. » He paid $ 48 for suede jacket like a mate’s.

The Rockers

Electrician. Rocker Charlie Williams, 23, is from Watford. He earns the equivalent of $ 46 aweek as an electrician , a trade which has its representatives on the other side among the Mods.

Racer. Peter « Spud » Hucklesby, 17, has taken part twice in annual Dragon Rally in North Wales, a major event in Rocker year. He is a laborer from Bushey, Herts, earns a wage of about $ 35 a week.

Fitter’s Mate. Ray Southgate, 19, hails from Watford, earns $ 43 weekly. A dedicated Rocker, he wears his hair like The Beatles, a characteristic found among Mods, and resembles Ringo.

Individualist. Rocker Paddy Welsh, 17, a garage mechanic from Epsom who earns about $ 30 a week, has star tattooed on ear, and wears on shoulder a strip reading « Rocker Forever».

« Ask almost any Mod why he is a Mod, » Green reports, « and he says ‘Oh, I’m not a Mod, I’m an individualist.’ » But while the Rocker could not care less about fashion, the Mod works hard at conformity to the latest styles in his own and his scooter’s adornment.

« Mod fashions change every four days, » Mod Magazine declares, and the chief beneficiaries of Mod dedication are the owners of shops in Soho’s dingy Carnaby Street that bear such names as Male West One, Paul’s Male Boutique and Mod Male. Six such shops are owned by John Stephens, 28, who arrived in London from Glasgow 10 years ago with $ 40. He nowaffords a Rolls-Royce : « We came in the right business at the right time ».

Shoppers. Mods consider a Carnaby Street purchase. Some travel hundreds of miles on Saturdays to buy the newest in Mod garb, and many spend as $ 30 a week to be in style.



Seller. Shop manager Pat Simm,22, runs down Carnaby Street with striped Madras jackets, the rage of the moment. Salesmen dress like Mods so that "they are on the same wave length" as patrons.



Garb to dance in. Bound for dance, Barry Hall, 17, Ken Todd, 18 and Brian Hemmings, 17 (all with face powder), show off their new suits. They spend $ 15 a week on garb like that.

The Mods and Rockers Ride Again

from 1966's Modern Man - the adult picture magazine ...

Gay London at Le Duce

Haydon Bridge's history of gay clubbing in London

The 60's - In which queers shift their traditional allegiance from prostitutes to the black community; Italy and France influence the style of the secretly queer mod movement; and the partial legalisation of homosexuality makes no difference to the London queer scene - or does it ?

Peter Burton (centre) and his sister Pamela and friend Stevie posing in D'Arblay Street 1967

where we went

Are you ready for the story of gay clubbing in London – more than 50 years of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll?

Yes, we really have been partying for that long - even before the first discothèque opened in 1960.“There’s a great myth that gay life didn’t start until 1967,” says Peter Burton, who ran
the gay mod club, Le Duce, which writer Alkarim Jivani calls “one of the trendiest places to be seen in London.”

“Amber”, now 71, arrived in Soho in 1948 at the age of 13. He can reel off a list of queer bars in Soho in the 50s:“The Alibi, the Huntsman, Take 5, The Apple, No. 9, the Casino. You didn’t have to go 100 yards.

We had more places then than now.”

Most of the bars were in basements and attics.They were tiny, but some had a juke box and people would dance.Amber reminisces about the Mambo in Greek Street. He must have been there in 1956 because Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill’ was on the juke box:

“It was the pits.

When they all started jiving, you could see the floor going up and down.”

Ironically, the Wolfenden Report, which recommended to the Government in 1957 that “homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence”, made life more difficult for queers.

Homophobic police stepped up raids on queer meeting places.They rarely made arrests, but intimidated everyone by taking names and addresses.

Corrupt cops also took cash and booze from bar owners. Queers took refuge in illegal drinking clubs.

Gay activist, Claire Andrews, remembers, “They were usually run by black people, who were sympathetic to lesbians and gay men who didn’t have a place to go.”

In 1964, when homosexual law reform had become inevitable, the Director of Public Prosecutions warned the police to ease up. But by that time gay life in Soho had been decimated.

It wouldn’t recover until the late 80s. In a double irony, the renowned Le Duce was co-owned by an ex-cop, Bill Bryant.

In 1964, he and his partner, Geoffrey Worthington, had opened a discreet queer bar, The Lounge, in Whitehall. It didn’t work, and the pair moved to Soho’s D’Arblay Street, where they got the formula right with their queer version of the nearby straight mod club,The Scene.

Like their hetero counterparts, queer mods wanted to dance non-stop (and had the drugs that enabled them to).

Le Duce was open all night every Saturday.The basement room had a door policy that kept the club fashionable (and predatory older men out).Working class poofs and straight dolly birds danced to black music – Jamaican blue beat,Tamla Motown.

“They spoke directly to us,” says Peter Burton, who was in charge from 1966 to 1968, when he
moved on.

By then Soho had been carved up by East End and Maltese gangsters, who were getting rich from hetero strip clubs and clip joints.

The queer scene moved to West London, where it was to thrive in the 70s. Incredibly, a prototype back room operated at the Gigolo in King’s road, Chelsea, from 1967.

“It was a long cellar and everyone would cram up the far end,” recalls gay historian Dr David Lawrence.“The lights were dim. It was like a scrum. Nobody ever came up and stopped anything.”

Alan Jones, co-author of disco history, Saturday Night Forever, is more explicit.“The first time I was ever given a blow job was in the Gigolo,” he reveals.

Meanwhile, in 1967, homosexuality was made legal according to the Wolfenden recommendations. It was little more than a rubber stamp.“It never changed my life in any way,” declares Amber.“It didn’t provoke a rush of new clubs,” agrees Peter Burton. But drag legend Pip Morgan feels that after 1967 there was a subtle change.“You used to keep an eye open for people who were in trouble,” he says regretfully.

“But when everyone could do what they wanted, people stopped being nice to each other.”

what we wore

“GROWING up gay and realising that one is different means a constant questioning of who you are,” says “John”, interviewed by the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Shaun Cole.“Experimenting with clothes is a way of exploring this difference, a way of showing or accepting your difference.”

Aged 15 in 1960, Peter Burton “favoured shirts in delicate pastel colours (lilac was a firm favourite)…a bouffant hairstyle and a tortoiseshell cigarette holder.” This dandy look, popular since Quentin Crisp’s heyday, was superseded by the Continental style, promoted to London queers by Bill Green, a former physique photographer, who opened Vince Man’s Shop in Soho in the 50s.

... Next to advertisements for John Stephen - Man alive published such ads for Domino mail order - fantastic text ...

On a trip to the South of France, he noticed such novelties as black jeans and tight swimming trunks. Rome’s ‘Dolce Vita’ period at the turn of the 60s was the next big influence.

Within months of the film’s premiere,Vince marketed “bum freezer” jackets, drain-pipe trousers and winklepicker shoes.

Green’s sales assistant, John Stephen, left to open His Clothes, around the corner in Carnaby Street. Stephen developed his own style, accentuating the male form even further by lowering trousers from the waist to the hips and minimising underwear (“hipster briefs”) accordingly.

This sexy and essentially queer look was appropriated by the mainstream rag trade to dress the mod era, big from 1963-6, when The Beatles helped to make London the most swinging city in the world.

By 1967 mods had been replaced by hippies with unisex clothes and shoulder-length hair. For the rest of the decade it was often difficult to determine gender, let alone sexuality. But this situation began to change around 1969, when some working class lads reacted to hippie androgyny by shortening their hair and wearing braces.

Were these first skinheads as gay as the skins at Hard On?

“They were always gay!” laughs Alan Jones.

“Braces! Even then it was a gay code.”

what we listened to

For decades working class queers and female prostitutes formed a natural alliance against the authorities that wanted the trouble makers off the streets and into jail.

But from the early 60s, when the legalisation of “discreet” prostitution and homosexuality became imminent, working class queers began gravitating towards the immigrant community from Jamaica.

This defining relationship between outcast societies can be traced through to the present day (and makes the homophobia of some Jamaican dancehall stars all the more preposterous).

From 1963, both straight and gay mod clubs played danceable records by Jamaican blue beat stars like Prince Buster and Desmond Dekker, music which became part

of the soundtrack of the mod era.

But queers also liked the whole package – the beat, the lyrics and the camp image – of US soul groups like The Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas and especially The Supremes.

At Le Duce the only white music played was “blue-eyed soul” by the likes of Dusty Springfield, who also happened to be gay and made-up like a drag queen.

Although ‘The Green Door’, a hit for both Frankie Vaughan and Jim Lowe in 1956, allegedly refers to a queer bar, the first unequivocally queer song,‘See My Friend’ by The Kinks,
reached number 10 in the British charts in 1965.

For the rest of the decade queers generally ignored protest songs and flower power in favour of bubblegum music, the camp fun of Tiny Tim and Harpers Bizarre, and stuff promoted by gay radio jock Kenny Everett.

Incidentally, all records played in gay clubs in the 60s were on juke boxes. London’s first disco, La Discothèque, and its more successful rival, the Whisky-a-go-go, were in Wardour Street from the early 60s; but there was no openly gay club night in the capital until Tricky Dicky (richard Scanes) began at the Father Redcap in Camberwell in 1971.

how we danced

The jive and its variations, introduced to the UK during World War II by American GIs, retained its popularity throughout the 50s, but mainly with straight kids.

Queers preferred the rare luxury of dancing arm in arm. everything changed in the early 60s, with the arrival of the twist, first popularised in New York’s Peppermint Lounge,“a gay hustler joint, frequented by sailors, lowlifes and street toughs in leather jackets,” says DJ historian Bill Brewster.

The first dance in which partners didn’t hold each other, the twist was perfect for queer bars.

When the police arrived, dancers quickly turned towards a person of the opposite sex.

Unfortunately, this didn’t work when the pretty police were on the floor.

In 1962, David Browne, manager of the Kandy Lounge in Gerrard Street, was hauled into Court because the club had been “visited by plain clothes policemen who observed men dancing the twist with each other.”

Browne’s counsel maintained that the men concerned were dancing the madison, in which people of the same sex formed a line.

It didn’t wash. Browne was found guilty.

The twist spawned several variations - the fly, the mashed potato, the locomotion, the pop pie – whose names were more familiar than their steps. (When Kylie revived the Locomotion in 1988, nobody could be found who remembered Little eva’s original dance).

In 1963, despite the continuing success of the twist, its prime exponent, Chubby Checker, turned his attention to the limbo.The next major development was the blues, the first of the “standing still and twitching” dances, supposedly invented by Dave Clark as a publicity stunt for his record ‘Do You Love Me?’ (1963).

It became the mods’ favourite dance, and was later “mod”ified into the hitch-hiker and the shake.The latter superseded the twist, but by the end of 1965 it had evolved into the frug, which became the staple dance of the late sixties.

how we got wasted

AS QX said in 1998,“Queers are always first to discover a new drug.”

And so it’s always been. Most of the queer bars of the 50s and 60s didn’t serve alcohol. Cocaine, which had virtually disappeared before World War II,hadn’t returned.

Therefore queers went in search of new excitement.

A popular destination was the branch of Boots on Piccadilly Circus, which stayed open all night. here you could buy a tube of Preludin, a slimming drug, which delivered a nice buzz for quite a few hours, or a tin of ten amyl nitrate capsules, intended to treat angina.

(You snapped or “popped” the capsule into a hankie and inhaled.

Poppers weren’t widely available in bottles until the late 70s).

Queers and Jamaicans bonded not just because of music but weed.

Cannabis was unknown in the UK until Jamaicans brought it here in 1948.At first it was used only among jazz musicians.

The first drug bust was in Soho in 1952, and this alerted the local queer community.Amber used to buy four ready-made “reefers” (spliffs) for £1.

Amphetamines, notably Benzedrine, were widely used as stimulants during World War II; and under their street names – purple hearts and black bombers were most common – “uppers” became the mods’ favourite drug.

Sleep became difficult without barbiturates (“downers”).

Pip Morgan remembers that the dealers were often girls (they were good at charming prescriptions out of doctors).

Peter Burton says that the fish in the tank at Le Duce kept dying because clubbers threw their pills into the water whenever there was a police raid.

Pip Morgan circa 1966

He also saw clubbers removing the wadding from Benzedrine inhalers and dunking it in Coca Cola, and Samantha the transvestite cat burglar sniffing her wig cleaning fluid.

Queers (or “gays” as we became known from about 1969 onwards) generally remained loyal to uppers and downers well into the 70s.

Lysergic acid (LSD), which arrived around 1966, didn’t suit queer club culture.The swirling patterns and dreamy,jangly music that contributed to the first Summer of Love in 1967 were pretty much a hetero thing.

Originally published in QXmagazine

It was a tribal thing

This writer, a pioneering mod, recalls a world of clubs, cliques and fearless tailoring

By Alfredo Marcantonio

IN THE FIFTIES, everybody grew up looking like their parents. It was just so grey. There was no music, no clothes and you didn’t have that many places to go. My sister Gloria, who was four years older than me, was a bit of a Beat, as they were called at the time, and she used to go to London for the coffee bars. The Two I’s was the famous one but there was a whole load of others — the Macabre, the Bastille, Les Enfants Terrible.

This was round about 1959. Then she really got into R’n’B music, people like LaVern Baker, Joe Turner, Ray Charles, the Drifters. Her big favourites were the Shirelles and she actually got to run their fan club, which unlocked a whole lot of things because then she started taking me to the clubs where all this music was going on. I guess I was about 14 and we used to go along with her pal and her brother, Geoff Lewis. So my sister was the one who told me: “Get some pointed shoes,” and got my mother to take up all the turn-ups on my trousers and put buttons on my shirt collar.

I was now a Mod. I used to come up to London and buy clothes but an awful lot of stuff you got made or you made it yourself or you found things in bizarre places. We used to buy cricket whites, cheap cotton ones from C&A, and dye them ourselves — bright yellow, orange — because you couldn’t buy bright coloured clothes.

We would have them shortened by two inches so you could show off your socks. I remember buying a scarlet shirt and my dad saying to me, “Where are you going? Bullfighting?” He’d never seen a scarlet shirt before. My mother was brilliant because she was a dressmaker and she used to make stuff. At the time, we used to go to the Scene club in Ham Yard (Soho) and try and wear something new each week. I would get my mother to make tartan shirts, polka-dot shirts, or maybe one guy down the Scene would have something on and we’d think, “That’s nice” and get it made for the following week. Once I saw something on TV with these American kids’ initials on their shirts. At the time the most sought-after things were these Italian lambswool tops which had a little button at the back of the collar. I got my mother to make some felt letters and she sewed an F for Freddy (my English name) on to one and a C for my mate Cliff on to the other. We wore them down the Scene club and the next week everybody had them. I loved a shop called Austins, that was a real favourite, and we also went to Cecil Gee and Annello and Davide, the shoe people in Covent Garden.

All they made were dancing shoes but they had these shoes with a Cuban heel and a seam down the middle, which was very unusual. I think they were flamenco shoes and somebody saw them and said: “Right, I’ll have those.” This was well before the Beatles.

We used to go to Heathrow airport on our scooters. There was a bowling alley there and the shoes were fantastic, three colours and with your size written on the back. So we would put on our sy shoes and walk out in a pair of these bowling shoes, cost you nothing. Then you would get a coffee late at night in the airport.

Mods were not that interested in groups. We were into records. Monday nights we used to go to the Lyceum in Streatham and the Orchid in Purley, sometimes both on the same night. Tuesday we stayed in. Wednesdays was the Wimbledon Palais, Thursdays it was the Locarno in Streatham. At the weekend the Scene was the big club and then there was the Flamingo where we went to see Georgie Fame whom we really loved. You’d go and see Georgie and you’d think: “What’s this music he’s playing?” So you would go and check out Mose Allison or whoever and that’s how you got put on to various artists. I still see Mose Allison when he’s in town, he’s brilliant. At some of these clubs you would take records along and you’d go up to the DJ and say: “I’ve got the new Maxine Brown single.” They would have a separate deck to preview new tunes and then they’d play your record, which was really cool. The Lyceum in London was a Sunday afternoon dance and that was a big Mod club.

You had to watch it a little bit if you went to clubs in different parts of town that were not your own. You tended not to chat birds up at those places although there weren’t that many good-looking Mod birds to go round.

It was a very male thing. It was also a tribal thing. There was a period when all the East London boys wore blue suits and all the South London boys had grey suits. You had your little teams and you were very stuck up, you were very proud. Fraternising with others was a bit like lowering yourself. It was very insular that way. You wanted to be the one who wore things first, not the one who wore it three weeks later.

In my team there was Denzil (who appeared on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine, August 2, 1964 – See “Changing Faces” elsewhere on the blog) and Pete Saunders who later became a DJ. The other one who was a pal was Mickey Finn, who got pally with the DJ Guy Stevens and later on teamed up with Marc Bolan in T. Rex.

There were a few fights but unlike what Stan Cohen, the sociologist, says about it all being speed orientated, it wasn’t. People only really took speed at the weekends and they did so to keep awake. Then they started thinking, “This pill isn’t bad,” and stepped up the dosage until they got right out of their boxes.

The end of it was Brighton in 1964 and the riots. Those guys weren’t right. It was all watered down. They’d bought a parka but that was it.

What broke your heart was that it all got so big, plus it didn’t help when the papers blew up the stories about the pills. The centre of gravity moved from Carnaby Street, which was now exploiting people, to the Kings Road, and that became the new scene. For me it was all over. I pulled out.

From The Times - July 28, 2003

Are you a Mod or a Rocker ? - 1963

Pass the test ! (but we won't divulge our results !!)

thanks to Alvaro & Mocky Dimples for this early article from Motor Cycle magazine Dec. 1963

Elegancia 1964

Alvaro & Mocky Dimples have sent these great scans of a Spanish magazine called Blanco y Negro dated 11th July 1964.

Thanks !

London Shopping

Back in 1965, US magazine Teen’s Robyn Guest tries to catch what’s left of mod and follow a girls' trio through the streets of London.

Silly article, nice pics.

Christine Rout, Susanne Frost and Louise Freeman are our guides …

CARNABY STREET : A quaint narrow strip of stores that caters to the very get-ahead crowd. This is where the teens trample over each other ever shopping day to buy what they can afford in the latest Mod styles.

Boy-watching is just as popular as window-shopping, at least it seems so for Louise.

The Stephen House caters to record fans as well as to gals who buy the Mod clothes.

Well, let’s have a closer look. HER CLOTHES inside a store for HIS CLOTHES.
Why not ?

It’s common for boys to shop with their girlfriends. Each selects the other’s clothing.

“It’s as much fun to look at the boys’ clothes as it is our own. Lots of times I’ve gone shopping just looking at what the male side of our sex is wearing. That way we can tell which boys are ‘in’ when we meet them at parties or other places.”

(Which shows how Mod logic works.)

Stagger Lee

The Isleys, London mods and a gun ...

Blues in England - Part Two

T-Bone Walker
Live at the Klooks Kleek 1965

by Tony Lennane - From Blues Unlimited - April 1965 Issue

Just a few weeks short Klooks from West Hampstead station is the Railway Hotel, home of Klooks Kleek, a rather posher-than-usual R n’B club.

It is located on the first floor, bars and carpets everywhere: not the kind of place I would have expected to see T-Bone Walker.

See him I did.

This was one of Klooks better nights. By nine pm it was quite packed, though little known to the present generation of beat enthusiasts, there was quite a lot of genuine appreciation evident that night. It was March 9^th; the doors were opened at 8.00 pm and we were allowed in for a very reasonable 7/- (how do they manage it ?)

Our first entertainers, and entertain they did, were the “Bluesbreakers” led by John “heart and soul in my music” Mayall, a true musician deeply involved in the true traditions of the American Negro.

I feel just recognition should be given where it is rightly due. Here is a man who knows the music, in fact a true enthusiast of the pure blues, definitely the best group we are fortunate in having here in Britain.*

After having been told of T-Bones appearance having been set for a full hour at the end of the evening between 10 and 11 pm, he appeared without warning at approximately 9 o’clock for the first of the two sets of the day.

First we were to be impressed by a five-minute guitar instrumental which, though, simple in construction , had us all rockin’. Once again credit is due to the boys for a very able backing. T-Bone told me later “they have a true feeling for the blues”.

He liked the boys, as he explained later in the bar, over a gin and orange.

The highlights of the evening were the two numbers he featured on the “Original American Folk-Blues Festival” (Polydor LPHM 237-597), “I wanna see my baby” and “I’m in love”, both among my particular favorites by T-Bone.

Other exciting – if commercial – numbers to be performed for our eager ears included the rock classic of the fifties “Linda Loo”, originally recorded by the now unheard Ray Sharp, and “T-Bone Shuffle”, an item remembered from his Atlantic label employ.

After half-time in yonder bar we pushed our weary way to the front to find John Mayall running through a few popular R n’B items – “My Babe” etc…etc…etc… T-Bone appeared to back John for a few numbers before taking the spotlight himself.

To end the night of unforgettable music we were given a form of Hooker-cum-Reed-cum-Walker “Boogie Riff”. It took 4 encores and nigh on twelve minutes before he finally disappeared behind the door, to appear very briefly with a bow and a broad smile.

This was a night never to be forgotten, and for Klooks Kleek I sincerely hope, a paying one.

More performances by visiting US artists to such as the Kleek club will undoubtedly bring out the best in all of them, thus rewarding the bluesophile with better than the average shows.

T-Bone’s tour of Britain proves to be quite comprehensive, as he is taking in all 3 TV channels and travelling from his London hotel (The Imperial) to perform everywhere from

the Cliffs Pavilion Southend to

the Regency Ballroom Bath, via

Market Hall, St. Albans,

Club-A-GoGo, Newcastle;

Dungeon Club, Nottingham;

Twisted Wheel, Manchester;

The Whiskey-A-GoGo, Birmingham;

Ricky Tick, Windsor;

Doghouse Club, Harrow;

Crawdaddy, Richmond

and many other colourful places with such names as

Cooks Ferry Inn,

Concord South Bank Jazz Club,

Public Hall,

Chelsea College and

Trade Union Hall !

Quite a selection ……

T-Bone spent two evening in full rehearsal with his group at the Marquee Club in Wardour St., London prior to his opening night at the Flamingo, which lacked the spark of his Klooks performance, a night that ignited a blaze of new interest in one of the greatest of old time bluesmen.

* Note that, as the “Bexhill Observer” so rightly says, “Any opinions stated by our correspondents do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff.” So don’t plague us with letters (as once happened).

Young Londoners

by Jane Wilson - from Len Deighton's London Dossier

Young Londoners fall into two main groups which are divided by the usual distinctions of age, occupation and money.

First there are the teenagers, referred to generically as ‘mods’. Clearly some are modder than others, but if you watch the crowd scenes in the various television programmes devoted to pop, you will get the general idea of the current fashions in this group. (Boys on these programmes whose fancy dress appears to be fancier than most, and girls of immodest appearance, are probably not mods at all but specially hired to give colour to the proceedings.) Mods like to look as much like one another as possible, and their girls are rather demure. Elder mods are sometimes as old as twenty-two. No one knows what happens to old mods because we haven’t had a whole generation of them yet. Presumably they marry, have children, and settle down to form the backbone of England.

Mods continue to earn more than their parents ever did when young, and they spend their money almost exclusively on pop records and clothes. The correct attitude in this group is exceedingly cool, almost blank. The young girls may scream occasionally at the pop group of their choice, and the boys may have the odd Saturday night or Bank Holiday punch-up, but emotional behaviour or any kind of frolicking is otherwise unseemly. They are not strictly chaste – but the girls are preparing for a white wedding. Mods don’t go to bistros, they prefer the Gold Egg type of restaurant. Wherever you see gigantic orange light fittings and décor which looks like one huge fruit machine, you will know that the mods are inside eating square meals in round buns. Mods’ night-life ends around midnight during the week. They have nine-to-five jobs and live at home, so they don’t go to the expensive late-night discothèques.

The mods are responsible, as principal consumers, for the progress of pop music, and the tabernacle and heart of London’s blood music is the Marquee Club at 90 Wardour Street, w1. The entrance is murky and the air inside is hot, damp and salty. If you really like pop music and can survive in unconditioned air, you should investigate this place…

… The Marquee moved about three years ago from its old premises in Oxford Street to this new larger outfit.

In Oxford Street they used to announce every night how many people were in the club ‘LADIES AND GENTLEMEN – TONIGHT, AN ALL-TIME RECORD! THERE ARE 874 OF US IN HERE!’

The Stones, in the days when they really were dirty, had their first central London club engagement at the old Marquee. Rhythm’n Blues in England began there with the late Cyril Davis, who died a few years ago from pneumonia after being stranded in the rain on the way to a gig somewhere.

His music was much harsher and harder than anything around now, and the Marquee then was not exactly fashionable. There were always a lot of old, ugly and unexplained people around.

Some nights the rucksack-beard-and-bedding-roll group would arrive from hitchin in some unknown Thumb Country, and there was usually a sort of habitué circle of Negroes with hip flasks dancing in front of the bandstand.

The Negroes have moved on now to the Flamingo and All-Nighter Club in Lower Wardour Street, home of Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames, and Zoot Money and The Big Roll Band.

The hitch-hikers have disappeared altogether from the beat-club scene. They were the extremist end of the Rocker tribe, which is now almost extinct. But you can still see nomads in Trafalgar Square outside the National Gallery on a summer afternoon.

They are filthy and hairy and lost, and they sit there nursing their blistered feet after a trek from god knows where. Most of them grow out of it and get over it, but they suffer for their art and make a change sometimes from the neat little mass-produced mods.

These mods, the ones who care more about The Look than The Sound, congregate nightly at a place called Tiles just a block down Oxford Street from Tottenham Court Road.

The music of Steve Darbishire and The Yum Yum Band, or of Everett of England, or the Anteeks, is relayed out into the street via speakers placed in neighbouring shop doorways.

Inside they dance actively, and spend their money in the night-time shops built in the maze of corridors that surround the main dance floor. The birds’ clothes shop is called Plumage, and if you’re not a success on arrival you can nip in there and come out again in something new.

On nights when there’s no live music they still crowd near the bandstand and listen to the patter of the tiny DJ. But they dance less and inspect one another’s clothing more.

The girls gather in serious little groups and tell one another the price of things, and the boys go peacocking around catching their own reflections in the glass swing doors.

Wall-to-wall mirrors in this welter of narcissism would send the sales of plumage for both sexes up by 50 per cent – or bring the whole enterprise to a halt.

... to be continued

Blues In England - Part One

John Lee Hooker 1964
Contrasting reviews

John J. Broven

The incredulous, it seemed, had happened when it was announced that John Lee Hooker was to tour England this June. Armed with unbounded enthusiasm, (wot John, no rotten eggs!) we were apparently going to be treated to “the show of a lifetime”.

It was not to be.

Hooker started his tour on Monday, June 4^th at the Flamingo Club, after a perfunctory appearance at the Rediffusion Studios on “Ready Steady Go!”.

In the broiling atmosphere of this one-time modern jazz centre, we had a full two hours of synthetic rubbish from the Cheynes and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.
It was then learnt that Mayall would back Hooker, and despite protests to John Lee before the show, it was to be. Hooker appeared, and with Mayall’s organ and harmonica (yes! – he plays both at once!) striving for the limelight, he was content to strum his way through meaningless things like “Dimples”, “Boom Boom”, “Hi Heel Sneakers” and others.

In his whole act he only did two slow blues and of these, only “I’m In The Mood” came off to any degree. But most disappointing was that his guitar work was kept to a minimum.

Undaunted, I saw Hooker twice later in the tour at Guildford and again at the Flamingo, hoping for some improvement.
Apart from a magnificent “Late Hours At Midnight” at Guildford (in complete darkness and with Mayall on piano), his original act hadn’t been transformed to any substantial degree.
What went wrong?

Why was one of the greatest living bluesmen transformed into an unexceptional R&B artist?

Obviously a lot of blame must go to whoever teamed Hooker with Mayall.

If he must have a group, OK, but not an organ! Also John appeared to be under the misconception that he was playing to a “pop” audience, judging by the stream of medium-tempo songs – which soon began to pall, being so alike.

Blues enthusiasts were definitely to the fore at the Flamingo, and if this wasn’t so elsewhere, wasn’t this the perfect opportunity to educate the uninitiated?

My opinion of Hooker has not fallen on account of this tour.

He has shown, in odd flashes, what a great bluesman he is. It’s just that this tour, for a blues lover, has been so badly presented, if financially a great success.

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Simon A. Napier

First a few words on JJB’s feature above. I expect many will disagree with John’s point of view; obviously there is justification in what he says, on the other hand arguments can be put against this viewpoint.

If you happen to feel like writing, by all means do.

It may be worth mentioning that John, Mike Leadbitter, Graham Ackers and yours truly took JLH along on June 2^nd to “Beat City” to see Chuck Berry, this of course two days before John’s tour opened.

Whatever, this could have had some effect on his act, seeing the audience reaction to Chuck.

Hooker is a fine man, but he is very aware of any commercial angles and willing to put them to good use if it turns out to his benefit

From Blues Unlimited – August 1964 issue

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… and another view from Graham Ackers from the September issue …

Cleveleys, Nr. Blackpool 8/7/64

Wednesday, July 8^th. John Lee Hooker played a most unlikely sounding venue at the Savoy Ballroom, Cleveleys. About 8.30 Dave Ward and I emerged from the bar and heard the last few numbers of the Groundhogs set. This group, previously unknown to us, was quite a surprise. They weren’t bad at all and instrumentally very like the originals.

Later they accompanied Hooker.

Then followed some noisy group of ruffians, who, after two verses of “What’d I Say” drove us barwise again!

We re-emerged slightly more amicable in frame of mind, soon dispelled by Georgie Fame and his mob. Admittedly they are technically quite adept, but what a bore the whole thing is!

We even had a Negro bashing some tom-toms, contributing less than nothing (!) – meant to add authenticity I suppose.

After this aural torture, Hooker came on to a very enthusiastic reception.

The message seems to have permeated to the far, windy shores after all.
He rolled straight into “Shake It Baby” with great power – perhaps a little too much – as a string broke after two verses!

Anyway, true to the maxim of all good showmen, he finished the number to great applause.

The next number he played with a Groundhog Fender – a somewhat unusual sight.

The Groundhog repaired his Gibson and finished the number with it.

Many followed including “Night Time Is The Right Time”, “Boom Boom”, “Hi Heel Sneakers”, “Dimples” (twice) and a blue version of “Tupelo”. This last was heavily requested and he was backed only with a bass guitar, which heightened the effect.

Every number was received with enthusiasm to such a degree that five encores were performed in all.

A special mention for the Groundhogs who throughout played admirably. All in direct contrast to the “let’s see who can play loudest” approach of John Mayall and crew.

In fact everything was just right – atmosphere, backing, amplification and temperature (compared to Tropical Flamingo conditions) and everybody, including Hooker and the Hogs, had quite a ball.

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John Lee Hooker – returned later that year for another tour …