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25 Jan 08 - 04:19 AM (#2244271) Subject: Princess Louise Folk Club From: GUEST I wonder if anyone on this website can help me out? My friend says that when the Singers Club was in the Princess Louise in London, it was held on a Sunday night. I'm sure that he's wrong. I'm sure we went there on a Saturday. Who's right? |
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25 Jan 08 - 04:47 AM (#2244281) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: The Borchester Echo As far as I can recall, the Singers' was always held on a Saturday at whatever location around the Holborn/King's Cross area. I always think the most appropriate was the Bull & Mouth. |
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25 Jan 08 - 06:54 AM (#2244332) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: GUEST,Derek Schofield Read Ben Harker's new biography of Ewan MacColl - it's all in there! Derek Schofield |
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25 Jan 08 - 09:25 AM (#2244450) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: GUEST,Hootenanny The Singers Club was NEVER at the Princess Louise. The BALLADS & BLUES" club was at the Princess Louise on Saturday nights from about 1957/8. Ewan and Peggy were residents. The man that organised the club was Malcolm Nixon assisted by Pete Turner. Other regular singers at the time were Isla Cameron, Dean Gitter from the USA, Winston and Mary Jane Young from Canada, Rory & Alex McEwen, Dominic Behan, Stan Kelly, Sandy & Caroline Paton, Guy Carawan etc etc etc too numerous to list. I can't remember the exact dates but about 1961 Ewan & Peggy had their own ideas about the direction in which the club should go and went off to form The Singers Club. Before this happened the venue had shifted from The Princess Louise to various venues: The King & Queen at Paddington Green (where Alex Campbell first showed up and upset Ewan by reciting a Glasgow kids rhyme about farting, the ACCT Union building in Soho Square was another, The Coram Hotel around Tavistock Square area, The Three Horseshoes in Tottenham Court Road (where Maccoll and Dominic Behan came to blows over the subject of Alan Lomax's collecting activities in Irelad) and maybe one or two more. I was a regular at all these venues. In September 1961 The Ballads & Blues club continued at The Seven Down number 7 Carlisle Street a coffee bar which was previously The Partisan. After that at The Black Horse in Rathbone Place where Gill Cook later started a Monday night traditional British club. The Porcupine in Charing Cross Road and finally in 1965 The King of Corsica in Berwick Street. As far as I can remember The Singers Club went first to the Merlin's Cave, they were also at The Union Tavern Lloyd Baker Street and later underneath a block of coucil flats in St John Street near The Angel. I hope that this fills in a few details. Hoot |
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25 Jan 08 - 01:35 PM (#2244672) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: Jim Carroll 'The Singers Club was NEVER at the Princess Louise.' Not true - after it left The Union Tavern it went to The Bull and Mouth in Holbourn, and from there, back to 'The Princess' for a period; then it moved on to The Cora Hotel in Kingsway. It was a tradition that every time it moved Ewan wrote a verse of a song about the new venue (Song of the Travels) - this probably ended up with the rest of the collection at Ruskin. Jim Carroll |
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25 Jan 08 - 07:12 PM (#2245033) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: GUEST,Hootenanny I stand corrected Jim, my apologies to anybody that I might have misled, that move by Ewan & Peggy slipped by me. Must have been too busy keeping up with the B&B. Can you remember what year(s) that might have been? Does anybody have any photographs of those early days at the Princess Louise for the Ballads & Blues Club? Hoot |
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26 Jan 08 - 03:17 AM (#2245211) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: Jim Carroll Hootenanny, No apologies needed, there were so many moves with the club at that time that I have difficulties in remembering all of them. That particular one would have been mid to late seventies I think. It was at the height of the period when the breweries were expanding their properties to make use of the function rooms; in the Louise's case it became a bistro for office workers. Ironically, I was working as an electrician for a firm contracted to Watneys, (of non-alcoholic beer fame, (though not intentionally). I saw from the inside the devastation of some of the most beautiful period pubs in London. We left the Cora Hotel when we heard that the management had let its function room for a weekend knees-up of European fascists - the booking was made by LePen's daughter. Two early venues not mentioned, both in the early sixties, were The Pindar of Wakefield in Grays Inn Road and a (non alcoholic) Boys Club in Lamb's Conduit Lane (adjacent to Conway Hall). There was also The John Snow in Soho Square; Pat remembers queuing up to see Ravi Shankar there (I think we still have the pre-publicity leaflet here somewhere). The John Snow was also the scene of 'The Great Debate' in the mid-sixties, when a panel consisting of Bert Lloyd, Alex Campbell and Bob Davenport discussed the revival; MacColl chaired the meeting. Campbell bemoaned the fact that young singers were getting the same fees as him and told everybody how much he 'loved the auld folk', Davenport spoke about 'art' with a small or large 'A', said Jeannie Robertson was a rotten singer and shouted everybody else down, Bert was nice to everybody, and the proceedings ended in fisticuffs - halcyon days. Jim Carroll |
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26 Jan 08 - 03:45 AM (#2245218) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: The Borchester Echo Ah, The Pindar Of Wakefield! I was in there one afternoon recently (it's now called The Water Rat) attempting a serious discussion. Because of a never-ending drum soundcheck for an evening gig, this was quite impossible. Wonder what Ewan would have said! As for leaving the Cora because of a Front Nationale soireé, a similar incident happened at The Enterprise in Chalk Farm. I recall some of us speaking very severely to Charles, the landlord, about letting the club room to the English National Front. Fortunately he stopped doing this (hurrah) and the club continued. The Enterprise is still there, but utterly and completely unrecognisable, in this case for the better. |
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26 Jan 08 - 09:57 AM (#2245335) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: Jim Carroll Countess Di, I hope you don't mean that they've got rid of the sawdust on the floor! Is the Empress of Russia still there? Jim Carroll |
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26 Jan 08 - 11:49 AM (#2245403) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: Fred McCormick Thanks Jim. I was right after all. |
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26 Jan 08 - 12:51 PM (#2245475) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: The Borchester Echo Jim: The Enterprise is now all open plan on the ground floor. Sofas and no sawdust but good beer, used by the newer and posher Roundhouse crowd and also, occasionally, Unity Theatre Song Club. The Enpress of Russia is a poncy restaurant. |
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27 Jan 08 - 04:06 AM (#2245961) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: Jim Carroll Countess: Oh dear! Reminds me of the time we visited Sam Larner's village of Winterton to see if there were any old singers still there. Around lunchtime we went into 'The Fisherman's Return, (where Sam and the other villagers used to meet every Saturday night for a singaround) to find it had recently been taken over by Londoners who were in the process of laying a carpet. When we passed this information on to an old contemporary of Sam's, his response was, "a carpet; a bloody carpet; you can't spit on a carpet!" Jim Carroll PS Fred - wha.......? |
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27 Jan 08 - 05:39 AM (#2245983) Subject: RE: Princess Louise Folk Club From: Fred McCormick Sorry folks, I've just realised that I started this thread níl cookie, having cleared the damned things out to make the computer run faster. People who post anonymously don't half get up my nose. Interesting thread though. |