BACK BEHIND THE CAMERA

AFTER A THREE YEAR BREAK, FIRST FOR THE LOCKDOWN, THEN TO WRITE A NEW BOOK, I’VE JUST STARTED ON THE FIRST OF THREE NEW FILMS.

In London last month, I was back making movies.

    This time, I was following the metamorphosis of British rock, from trad jazz through skiffle to R&B, then on to rock in all its forms - metal, progressive, punk and alternative. And how the Marquee club was always the focal point of what was happening.

     It’s an extraordinary story. On the surface, who could possibly see a link between a band playing Dixieland jazz - clarinet, trombone, trumpet and banjo - with, for instance, Led Zeppelin? Yet, there’s a clear line of transition. Pete Townshend, for instance, once played banjo in a trad band that featured John Entwistle on trumpet.

    In the early 1950s, trad jazz had a rough edge of anti-authoritarianism that appealed to teenagers. It was played in sweaty basements and upstairs rooms in pubs. It was raucous. You could dance to it flamboyantly, throw yourselves around and be totally uninhibited. The older generation was excluded. It was the rock music of its moment.

     By the mid-50s, the three most popular musical acts in Britain were trad jazz bands – Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball and Chris Barber. A clarinetist, a trumpeter and a trombonist. How on earth did it happen that just five years later they’d been usurped by electric guitars?

    Blowing a brass instrument in a crowded basement for 40 minutes is thirsty work. Your lips get numb, your energy flags and you need a break. But who’s going to entertain the audience? The easiest way is for the rhythm section to step forward and sing a few songs, with the banjoist switching to acoustic guitar.

     These interval bands became known as ‘skiffle groups’. And because their principal love was for the music of New Orleans, they chose songs from the same culture – from American black country singers like Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly and Muddy Waters.

     Of all these skiffle groups, Chris Barber’s was the best. One night at a recording session, short of a track for an album, the band slipped in one of their skiffle songs – Rock Island Line. It came out under the band’s name but it was their banjoist, Lonnie Donegan, who sung it, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. And when it went to number one, it changed British music forever.

     At almost the same time, American rock ‘n’ roll had arrived – Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Lil Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. But while British kids bought their records too, they weren’t able to copy them the same way they could copy skiffle. Rock ‘n’ roll was too slickly made. And the artists were American. Lonnie Donegan’s music was simple - acoustic guitar, string bass and a washboard banged with thimbles. And Donegan was British.

    A year later, there were 50,000 teenage groups in Britain, most of them using homemade instruments – tea chest bass, a washboard from the hardware store and often a guitar made in school woodwork classes. Britain was skiffle obsessed.

     In 1958, Harold Pendleton, the manager of the Chris Barber band, opened a club for modern jazz. It was below the Academy Cinema in Oxford Street; formerly a restaurant, quite poshly decorated and called The Marquee. It was done out to look like a big tent, with sofas, chandeliers and carpets. He booked Ornette Colman, Theolonius Monk, Zoot Sims and the Johnny Dankworth Band, but the takings weren’t good enough.

      By this time, the best skiffle groups had started making money and could buy electric guitars and drum kits. Soon, their music was morphing into R&B. To make ends meet Harold Pendleton introduced R&B evenings to the Marquee and before long it became the centre of the skiffle to R&B transition.

     Playing Chicago-style R&B, there were four regular bands - Alexis Corner, Cyril Davis, John Mayall, John Baldry - but the audience was mainly teenage skiffle enthusiasts, eager to expand their musical horizons. Many had names we’d later become familiar with - Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger. Already in John Baldry’s band, a teenage Rod Stewart was sharing vocals. And when Baldry re-jigged his band, he bought in a young Elton John on keyboards.

    In 1961, at the Marquee club in Oxford Street, the Rolling Stones played their first ever gig. Soon, the Yardbirds, the Animals and Manfred Mann had joined them as resident groups, alternating with evenings of trad and modern jazz.

     In the charts, trad jazz still held its own, but in 1963 it finally lost its grip. Journalist Chris Welch was at the three-day festival the Marquee had arranged at Richmond, featuring all the groups who played at the club during the year. ‘The Acker Bilk band was playing on the main stage when an announcement came on the Tannoy: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones are about to start their set in the Marquee at the back of the field.” Almost at once the crowd began to move, and when they realized they were all going in the same direction, they began to run - two thousand people stampeding across the field trying to get to themselves a place in the small marquee at the back of it. For me, that was the moment when trad jazz died and R&B took over.’

     In 1964, the Marquee club lost its lease at the Academy cinema and moved to Wardour Street. With it went its name, the décor, the sofas and the carpet. But its jazz was left behind. The new Marquee in Wardour Street became the home of R&B.

     These young R&B groups were bursting with optimism and energy. And sex. When Eric Burdon sang, ‘I’m a man’, he didn’t mean, ‘although I’m black I’m human,’ he meant, ‘I’m feeling horny.’ To adjust to this new reality, groups started writing their own songs with lyrics that reflected teenage experiences.

     New nuances occurred. The groups moved away from the purist R&B they’d been playing and found styles of their own. Soon, the British press had given this new music a name of its own – ROCK – without the roll.

    From Liverpool, there was also the Beatles. They’d started out at the Cavern, which like the Marquee had begun as a jazz club. But their distinctive style came as much from the black American pop of Motown and Lil Richard as from the country blues of Leadbelly and Muddy Waters. It gave them an edge. And when it helped them break America, they paved the way for all the other British groups, honed to perfection after ten years transitioning from skiffle.

     But this was only the beginning of the story. From there onwards, British rock developed, diverged, split, progressed and grew in endless new directions.

     The Moody Blues turned their songs into orchestral suites. Jethro Tull combined English folk music with hard rock. Pink Floyd flirted with psychedelia. Cream used virtuosity the primary image. Emerson Lake and Palmer switched the emphasis to keyboards. Yes balanced their keyboards with guitar and were not afraid of pop songs. Led Zeppelin perfected heavy metal, King Crimson incorporated jazz, Queen veered towards anthems and ELO towards daft imagery. Then the Jam, the Clash and the Sex Pistols led us into a world of punk.

    At the centre of everything, featuring new bands, giving them residencies, building their names, and providing a club where musicians, managers and agents and could mix with the general public, was the Marquee (its carpet growing stickier by the year).

    Billy Bragg called it, ‘the beginnings, the roots, the archaeology, the absolute bedrock of British rock.’

    The Melody Maker named it ‘the most important venue in the history of pop.’

     It’s tempting to write a list of all the top British groups who played there, but it’s easier to list the ones who didn’t, which pretty much means just the Beatles. But in 1965 when Jimi Hendrix played his first Marquee gig, all four of them were sitting in the front row together with the five Rolling Stones.

     Jack Barrie, the club’s manager said, ‘The official capacity was 400 but we let in 1,390. That night the ceiling literally dripped sweat.’

    The history of the Marquee Club and the history of British rock - their stories are inseparable.

     It’s a great film to be making.

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