Jo Kendall discusses with Robert Sellars and Nick Pendleton, co-authors of Marquee: the World’s Greatest Music Venue, and pop culture writer Peter Watts, the glory days of the London music scene, and why so much of Soho’s musical heritage has been erased.
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 is a must watch!
*Marquee: the World’s Greatest Music Venue can be purchased from Paradise Road Publishing.
(Video below, or follow this link)
