The British Beat Explosion: Rock n Roll Island

By Michele Whitby and Zoe Howe

Edited by JC Wheatley

Written by Michele Whitby and Zoe Howe

Voted Best Blues Book (2014) by Blues Matters

Have you heard about Eel Pie Island?

Anyone with an interest in the history of UK rock n' roll is familiar with The Cavern Club and the role that Merseyside played in the story of the British Beat scene. But on a far-less-celebrated, but no less significant path, over a small bridge onto an island in the middle of the Thames, Eel Pie Hotel, another great 60s club night, played host to acts that would later make a global name for themselves.

The Rolling Stones, Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd, The Small Faces, David Bowie and The Yardbirds are amongst the many acts who performed at the legendary Eel Pie Hotel during its 50s and 60s heyday, as did jazz greats like Ken Colyer, Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk, as well as more avant-garde performers like Ivor Cutler.

But how did The Eel Pie Club become such a popular venue?
What motivated its founder, Arthur Chisnall to create a space where young people could enjoy the music they wanted to, in an environment free from the usual constraints?
Why has this thriving West London scene been omitted from rock history when its influence has spread far and wide?

Recently, bands like The Mystery Jets have paid homage to Chisnall's fabulous club, playing gigs on the island that launched careers and cemented rock's infamous relationships.

The latest incarnation of the Eel Pie Club is alive and well. This book traces the origins of a scene that is long overdue for recognition.

Reviews:

The British Beat Explosion: Rock n' Roll Island awarded Best Blues Book (2014) by Blues Matters magazine, who said:

"Here there are fascinating interviews with performers, and fans' oral histories explaining why and how Eel Pie became the unlikely centre of a transformative musical and social scene."

'From the perspective of an Eelpieland regular - back in the day – it's a wonderful read with great pictures – I couldn't put it down.' – Steven Cockcroft

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
• Release date: Jan 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781906582524

Book preview

Mural banjo player, extracted by Antonio Cusimano

Introduction

The Music Scene of the

Late 1950s and Early 1960s

Zoë Howe

It might not surprise you to know that water will loom large in this book. After all, we’re not just talking about an island in the Thames, but an island that, in its 1950s and 60s heyday, rocked so exuberantly that the river itself was said to burst through the bouncing floorboards as the bands played and the crowd jived. Joining in, no doubt. But beyond Eel Pie, the emerging British beat scene itself could only have taken root thanks to a healthy bit of watering – literally.

The beat boom was inspired by sweaty, high octane skiffle and rock ‘n’ roll and a dose of the swampy, emotional blues of the Mississippi delta, brought over to British ports by American GIs and merchant seamen (some say American records were used as ballast in the ships that came over, soon to be sold to eager, bequiffed teenagers who hung out by the docks). These were the same ports that would soon receive the artists themselves who, having been heard on vinyl via this organic musical grapevine, would swiftly become the heroes of the day.

Cities such as Liverpool, Newcastle, Belfast and London, therefore, were early pioneers, merging the new sounds they were exposed to with British style and a flurry of other beloved influences such as folk, skiffle, pop and even swing. The harmonies of folk, the energy and, crucially, the backbeat of rock ‘n’ roll and a pop sensibility all came into play. Bands were formed, songs and sounds were copied and adapted, clubs were started and the music reached even greater numbers of willing ears.

Liverpool’s Merseybeat movement, the launch-pad for the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers and many others, is perhaps the example that immediately springs to mind when the subject of British beat music is raised, followed by the names of late night hubs such as the iconic Marquee in London’s Soho, or Liverpool’s Cavern. But while Eel Pie Island’s place within the legacy of the beat explosion is rather less vaunted, it should not be underestimated in its importance for fostering and nurturing the scene, and its many admirers, in a unique and unforgettable way. There really was something in the water.

Before R&B and rock ‘n’ roll really gripped the Brits, trad jazz had these sceptred isles in something of a fever. It provided a whirling maelstrom of jubilant sound, wilder and more free than much of the staid, sanitised pop music of the time that seemed better suited to entertaining children than being the background to a young adult getting their rocks off. Lita Roza’s ‘How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?’ was a huge hit. Say no more. Smooth crooners like Sinatra and Perry Como also dominated the charts and, no disrespect to the gentler moments of Ol’ Blue Eyes and co, you couldn’t tear at your clothes, shake your hair loose and stamp yourself into a frenzy to ‘Catch A Falling Star’. If it wasn’t for Gene Vincent, or the raunchy sound of black American voices belonging to the likes of Little Richard, Etta James and Ray Charles (or those that loved Black American music such as Elvis Presley)… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Fortunately, in 1950s Britain, trad jazz bridged the gap and, crucially, introduced the blues. As well as being fun and energetic, trad was accessible. There weren’t many places across Britain that didn’t have a club or pub where you could hear ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ being blasted out. One of the earliest trad jazz clubs was started by the clarinetist Cy Laurie – a musician whose band would frequently play Eel Pie Island and who claimed to be the reincarnation of fellow clarinet player Johnny Dodds, even though Dodds was still alive when Cy was well into his teens. We needn’t go into that now.

Cy’s club was based in Ham Yard, Soho, a cul-de-sac that was home to a boxing gym, and was where the street traders from the market on Rupert Street could store their barrows; you had a few culture clashes going on there, literally in some cases. The club was famed for its all-nighters and general atmosphere of licentious sexual energy – in fact, it wasn’t unusual to hear of gig-goers claiming to have had rampant sex under the stage while the band was playing.

Jazz and rock ‘n’ roll clubs, coffee bars, dancehalls, they all attracted music-mad thrill-seekers, musicians, and, of course, horny American soldiers, who were key to this scene not only for bringing records from back home, but these snake-hipped GIs also brought dance steps over from across the ocean. Swing dancing and lindy-hopping, of course, came over during the Second World War, but later moves like the twist, the sugar push and the alligator were the dances that slowly replaced skip jiving in youth clubs and venues across the country, before taking off properly in the early 1960s.

However, in the early 1950s, the ‘teenager’, supposedly a phenomenon that burst into unruly life with the advent of rock ‘n’ roll, was already sneaking out to jive, sink a few beers and make whoopee if they were lucky enough to live near even the most makeshift live music venue. Acker Bilk (whose bowler hat was said to reside by the bar at the Eel Pie Jazz Club), Ken Colyer, Chris Barber (with key Eel Pie figures Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies in his group), George Melly – these were the stars who were getting everyone on their feet. Far be it for jazz-lovers in the 1950s to sit and stroke their chins thoughtfully to the music – they were dancing so hard their shoes would be destroyed, the floors were in jeopardy (especially if, as with the already dilapidated Eel Pie Hotel’s jazz club, the broiling Thames was underneath the rotting boards), the air hummed with tobacco and hormones and the walls were slick with sweat. George Melly described the method of dancing to trad as anti-dancing: jump heavily from foot to foot like a performing bear, preferably out of time to the beat… Trad musicians have christened these self-made elephants ‘leapniks’.

It would be these ‘leapniks’ who would joyously pound the sprung ballroom floor at Eel Pie Jazz Club – encouraged by club promoter Arthur Chisnall. Anyone who thinks jazz lovers are a civilised, even dull and stuffy bunch evidently needs to do their research. This lot were fabulously barmy and, as so many ex-beatniks insist, drugs weren’t really needed. They had ale, music, sex, a dance-floor. Arthur Chisnall has long been hailed for his contribution to youth work for providing a safe place for the young people of West London to wig out on a few beers, vibrant energy and the most cutting edge sounds around. The dance-floor was like a trampoline, remembers Eel Pie-lander (and wind-up radio inventor) Trevor Baylis. Everyone would be dancing, screaming, laughing and jumping around. They were great times. There weren’t many drugs but there was sex and a lot of rock ‘n’ roll. Nothing shocked us back then!

Well-travelled musicians crossed the river by ferry to get to odd little Eel Pie Island, also known as Eelpiland (mock passports were issued to enter this strange and mystical land) to find a place that boasted an atmosphere comparable with that of New Orleans. They revelled in the enthusiasm of the audience, some members of which would express their appreciation in all sorts of acceptable ways. It was very difficult not to get laid on Eel Pie Island, as George Melly once said. Sex rose from the dancing crowd of young beatniks like steam from a kettle.

Many beat groups of course, the Beatles being an obvious example, graduated from skiffle and a love of Glasgow-born skiffle king Lonnie Donegan (who famously covered 1930s blues songs including his huge hit ‘Rock Island Line’, first made famous by Leadbelly) to rhythm and blues. The route from trad to beat music is not hard to trace; the UK jazz musicians were already well-versed in the blues, barrelhouse and boogie woogie, no doubt having heard first-hand in many cases the voice of Bessie Smith or the joyous stride piano of Fats Waller. Inevitably these influences would mingle with the British jazzers’ style and penetrate the UK audience’s consciousness in turn, but soon mainstream music-lovers would be able to enjoy these new, vital Transatlantic sounds, because in 1955, major labels Decca and HMV would start distributing jazz and blues from the States.

Skiffle, meanwhile, was like the punk of the 1950s – it rammed a much-needed shot of energy into the backside of the establishment, to many people’s outrage, and it boasted something of a ‘DIY’ ethic; tea-chest basses with bits of string? Washboards? Kazoos? It had never been so easy to make music. Skifflers were, as writer Jon Savage puts it, the younger siblings of the trad jazzers who had packed out the 100 Club on Oxford Street, and clubs like Eel Pie Jazz Club, playing to duffle-coated weirdie beardies and their black-tighted, kohl-eyed girlfriends. Songs such as Humphrey Lyttelton’s ‘Bad Penny Blues’ bridged the trad-skiffle gap.

Rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues appealed to young people in Britain particularly for the renegade tone and sexy, sometimes tortured image. While singers such as Cliff Richard provided a glossy, mother-friendly version of Elvis Presley, the good stuff was being pounded out by the bands like Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and skifflers such as the Vipers, who worked with the singer Tommy