**Free to members of the Society (£7.50 to non-members)
Join Jo Kendall online for an ‘in conversation’ with Robert Sellars and Nick Pendleton, co-authors of Marquee: the World’s Greatest Music Venue, and pop culture writer Peter Watts, who is working on a book about Denmark Street, to hear about the history of rock ‘n’ roll in Soho.
This webinar will bring that disappearing history back to life, with tales from the glory days of the London music scene, and a discussion about how and why things have changed.
Soho was the birthplace of UK rock ‘n’ roll when skiffle band The Vipers played at the 2is coffee bar on Old Compton Street. The year was 1956. Soon, the area was the epicentre of the capital’s live music, shaking to jazz and rhythm and blues – and later rock, psychedelia, punk and goth – at venues including the Flamingo, Ronnie Scott’s, the Marquee, the Vortex and more.
Nearby Denmark Street – London’s Tin Pan Alley – was the place to buy musical instruments, record a demo or meet fellow musicians and songwriters for coffee at La Giaconda. Today, much of Soho’s musical heritage has been erased or, as in Denmark Street, radically overhauled.
For anyone interested in the history of music, or the ways in which Soho has evolved in the past half century, this will be a fascinating and entertaining event.
Jo teaches Music Journalism and Music Production at BIMM Institute London.
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