This week’s blog is a repost of an article by Live Music Exchange’s Adam Behr in The Conversation following the recent announcement of a Rolling Stones tour. An article in Rolling Stone magazine described the legendary band – its near namesake – as “growing old angrily”. Its portrait of Mick Jagger referenced “age lines around his eyes … as old as …
Category Archives: History
The UK’s live music culture under pressure – Adam Behr
Getting the Needle – Martin Cloonan
This week’s blog post is by Live Music Exchange’s own Martin Cloonan, who, with John Williamson, has just completed an important piece of work on the social history of the Musicians’ Union (for more on this, listen to Martin on BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed). This piece is about how the policy of ‘needletime’, brought in to protect the musicians …
Gig Going on London’s Periphery: Charting the Mainstream in the Margins – Kevin Milburn
Kevin Milburn’s post charts the shift of live activity in London from the early 1960s to the present day from the west to the east and southeast, highlighting the closure of significant venues along the way, including the Lewisham Odeon, as played by The Beatles. The post shows that such sites were not threatened by lack of use or decline but instead because of being based in areas newly attractive to investors, alongside other external factors, a story very pertinent at a time when, according to one report, London lost 30% of its venues between 2007 and 2015.
Unresolved questions in the history of live music 1953-64 – Colin Miller
Apartheid and South African jazz in the 1960s – Professor George McKay
‘Live’ / ‘Archive’ – Dr. Abigail Gardner
120 years ago today – John Williamson
This is the latest in an occasional series of posts originating from ‘The Musicians’ Union: A Social History’ – an AHRC and ESRC funded research project based in the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow. Dr. John Williamson looks back at the origins of the Musicians’ Union, on the occasion of its 120th anniversary last month.