Live Local Music, Artists & Venues

Not local music I am afraid, but I have enjoyed reading this one again. More tears in the eyes as I was listening to the Beach Boys last night, they were great were they not ? However the reason for this post - I was sorry to hear Andy Williams had died. His Christmas shows were spectacular. Not everyones favourite but there goes another one of the 'greats'.

I expect the news takes longer to travel to Australia? Andy made some pretty decent records. I remember buying his 'Happy Hearts' LP at Fennells in the Lower Precinct in 1970 for 37/6 but was miffed to find his latest single 'Fools Rush In' was not included. I would have had to buy his 'Greatest Hits' LP to obtain that!

Oh, go on then !! He had a lovely voice and sang with such ease. Never looked as if he was in agony like they do today.

Hubby has requested me to ask whether anyone remembers dancing to the 'Paul Stanley Orchestra', I don't know where but he obviously remembers it fondly - but it weren't with me He is older than me and I think it must have been in the 60's?

Hi Foxcote, Hi all The band played at various venues including the GEC ballroom. The Chase hotel was a regular for them too.

Wow, your hubby was most likely kicking his heels up at the GEC ballroom the same time as us then. Great place, not many seats though.

Morning, he used to dance to them at the Spa Ballroom in Spencer St, Leamington, entrance fee 6/6d, cloakroom, 3 pence, and the singer was Ray Wardell. He says the orchestra had several bands and they were from Coventry.

Paul Stanley and his family lived near to the Wallace many years ago. It was quite close to where the famous jazz trumpet player Ron Simmonds lived after the war. (see http://www.jazzprofessional.com/ronspages for many happy hours of reading)

I came across this flyer on the typepad website. Looks like it was an interesting night. I know this is a longshot, but I was wondering if anybody was there or has any information on the gig?

It would be good if someone could get some gigs at the new Albany Theatre. I suspect that Coventry has had no real music scene for so long that there are no promoters locally. I'd love to see some of the 70s prof bands that they get at the Assembly play there: Caravan, Barclay James Harvest, Curved Air, Strawbs, and some of the newer Prog acts such as Sanguine Hum. And some jazz.

Hi all The internet has broken so many boundaries regards music repro & performance, that it is only the musicians that love meeting in a cold damp practise venue, that persist & even then, they distribute via the internet. The attempts to restrict this by licence appear only to benefit the admin people & not the musicians, but that maybe a debatable issue.

The only place I knew had live music was the General Wolfe but now that too has gone, I don't get out much around Coventry so wouldn't know if there were anywhere that does play live now, thought the Albany Theatre was a great idea. The only other place now is the Ricoh which do the live concerts, other than that Nuneaton always have loads of live bands, perhaps we are falling behind them too.

The 'Blue Nile Club', Radford.

Hi Foxcote can you please tell me where the 'Blue Nile Club' was situated on the Radford Road?

Other live music venues that had decent bands in days gone by include The Plough (London Road), The Royal Naval Club (Spon St), The Stoker (Binley Road). Incidentally I went to see Vinegar Joe, featuring Elkie Brooks, at The Royal Naval Club back in about 1973. The band didn't show as Ms Brooks was suffering from 'flu. We were offered our money back (50p!) or a half refund and stay to watch the replacement band. As we were looking forward to seeing a live band, we went for the latter option. The band, from Birmingham, took to the stage and were absolutely appalling. I mean REALLY bad! After three numbers about 10 of us adjourned to the nearest pub in disgust. The name of the band? Oh yes.... Judas Priest! They 'made it' on an enormous scale a couple of years later, doing particularly well in the USA. In fairness, their singer has said how dreadful they were in their early days.