A RAINY NIGHT IN SOHO

Record shopping, puddle hopping and joy in the square mile.

Wet, wet, wet.

I love London in all its seasons. Right now we’re deep in winter which means its bloody chilly – to stave off the heating bills I wrap myself in multiple layers, just my nose and eyes peaking out from beneath beanies, scarves and fleeces. At least the cold weather is complimented by an absence of damp – when the air’s full of rain my asthma plays up and renders me pretty much immobile. This noted, I don’t blame winter for my asthma – I’ve had attacks in the Kiwi summer, while the worst ever was in Taiwan where it was cold and dry but something, possibly pollution, damn near did me in. Anyway, last Thursday a friend invited me to join them in seeing Dear England, James Graham’s play about Gareth Southgate, current manager of the England football team.

Dear England was playing at the Prince Edward Theatre in Soho. Well, that decided things: although it was raining so heavily it wasn’t simply cats and dogs but more an eels and frogs deluge, off I went on the 453 bus to reacquaint myself with my favourite West End neighbourhood.

There’s something unique about Soho. Upon entering its fabled streets I experience a psychic sense of a neighbourhood possessing its own micro-climate, more humid and edgy than that found outside its borders. Because there is no public transport within this warren of narrow streets and alleys (so forcing visitors to find their own way in and around) its character – very London and very cosmopolitain – has retained something now lost across much of the West End. Indeed, the tourist hordes who invade the surrounding streets rarely venture in while lingering traces of a sex industry (and the villains who fed off it) add a different kind of tension. Soho’s buzzy energy and somewhat seedy atmosphere ensures it remains unlike anywhere else.

Getting off the 453 on Regent Street, I initially headed west into Mayfair, instead of east into Soho. The reason for this was to visit an exhibition that will likely be described in a later post, but the difference between Mayfair and Soho is considerable – even when both are being subjected to the heaviest rainfall of the new year. Mayfair exudes wealth and exclusivity, its streets crisscrossed by expensive vehicles, a chill factor at play. I so rarely set foot in Mayfair that when I do its akin to exploring a different London to the one I know. Inevitably, I start thinking really obvious stuff like “there are lots of extremely rich people!” Which means its time for me to hotfoot it to Soho.

60 years ago Carnaby Street was shaping up as the heart of Swinging London. Today, its a bright tourist hotspot. I like the lights but little else holds my attention here.

I crossed Regent Street, everywhere people shuffling along beneath umbrellas, gutters overflowing with rain water, huge puddles taking over stretches of the pavement. London really isn’t designed for deluges. Which reminds me that neither was Auckland when I was there this time last year – the climate crisis is going to test our cities in ways urban planners never considered.

Still, the torrential rain, when combined with the Christmas lights that still cover Regent Street and parts of Soho, creates an almost hallucinogenic effect, the blurry shimmer of bright, multihued electric lights and dark alleys suggesting a kind of Soho noir.

Here’s one of Shane MacGowan’s best songs as performed by the Alabama 3 on their recent UK tour – I enjoy their version. Something to consider: while Shane made a big deal about being Irish, his songs consistently focus upon London.

At least since the end of WW2 up to the the early 2000s, Soho existed as the epicentre of the UK’s music industry. There’s little documentation for the decades prior to the war but, situated in the heart of the West End and home to all kinds of clubs – from private members to jazz (where visiting musicians would gather to blow with the locals) to secret gay clubs (simply attending such carried the threat of imprisonment until homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967), to African and West Indian clubs (where London’s multicultural music scene first began to flower) – plus countless pubs, record labels, music publishers’ offices and such suggests Soho provided the fecund setting for much of what would go on to make London famous as a music city (which wasn’t the case pre-1960).

When I first rocked up here in 1991, Soho was jammed with more record shops than anywhere else on earth. Berwick Street - nicknamed “the royal mile” (more a topped and tailed kilometre) - alone had around two dozen record shops at one point, and they sold all kinds of music: whether Groove Records on the corner of Greek Street and Bateman Street serving up rap when it was the freshest sound around, Daddy Kool on Berwick Street blasting dub, Black Market Records on D’Arbly Street, home of dance music, Vinyl Junkies providing the city’s foremost jazz and funk DJs with the right tunes, Hitman Records (then Mr Bongo) offering Latin American imports or Ambient Soho for those wanting to chillllllllll, the selection was vast and enchanting. Plus underground rock (Sister Ray, Selectadisc) and second hand (Reckless, Music & Video Exchange and the Beckettian Cheapo Cheapo). Europe’s largest Tower Records emporium was just off Soho in Piccadilly Circus while HMV’s original store at 363 Oxford Street was also just a hop, skip and jump away.

The rise of the internet – downloading and Amazon selling cheap CDs – put paid to that. And as London property prices have skyrocketed, Soho’s been gentrified with long celebrated shops, pubs and restaurants replaced by caffeine flophouses and branded eateries. Soho is no longer where the mavericks and madmen go to meet; today it’s more likely executives with expense accounts. This noted, Soho’s siren call ensures I return again and again.

Today, only Ronnie Scott’s and the 100 Club survive from when Soho served as an epicentre for live music. Soho without music venues and record shops? That would be a fate worse than the Tower without ravens, a hint the metropolis is afflicted, a cultural death of sorts. Consider how, in recent years, Soho has lost The Astoria, The Borderline and The 12 Bar (all remarkable venues to hear live music) alongside record, book and hardware shops, haberdasheries, independent cafes, basement bars and much else and think of what this says about our city: the West End’s character, its ferment – London’s soul – is shaped and nurtured by independent traders and artists and the people who engage and support them. This noted, Berwick Street still has two long standing record shops operating – Reckless Records and Sister Ray – and nearby are Phonica and Sound Of The Universe.

Sister Ray was once further down Berwick Street and specialised in dissonant alt.rock. Not my thing but preferable to today’s shop which seems to survive on Record Store Day offerings and a basement of expensive used LPs. Phonica is one of the few dance music shops surviving and is spacious and well stocked – here are where the old school club DJs meet to share the music that they love. Sound Of The Universe is home to the Soul Jazz record label and is a magnificent emporium (recently voted Best Retail Outlet in the West End!), beautifully laid out and with a superb selection of jazz, funk, soul, Latin, African and Caribbean musics. Even their small selection of old country LPs is tasty.

And then there’s Reckless Records. Reckless has, since opening forty years ago, dealt largely in second hand. Today it continues to offer deep stock (largely LPs with plenty of 45s alongside a high quality CD selection). Fair prices, fresh stock and friendly staff all ensure it is my favourite London record shop. Actually, I’ve surely purchased more LPs, 45s, 78s and CDs in Reckless than in any other shop anywhere. They should give me a medal, right?

Anyway, on this very wet night I was happy to take refuge in Reckless. I didn’t have a lot of time so I immediately hit their cheap bins, then looked through the jazz and soul bins. Les McCann’s death had been announced the previous day so I was tempted by the two McCann albums they had but as neither were titles I recognised I passed and instead grabbed two cheapos: Johnny Rivers’ Rewind LP and Joe Sun’s Old Flames (Can’t Hold A Candle To You). I’m wondering if my readers are familiar with either artist?

Here’s Johnny singing one of his biggest hits and one he had a hand in writing: Secret Agent Man. Its great, primal rock’n’roll. Yes, I also first heard this tune when Devo covered it.

I’m sure American music heads over 60 have a certain residual memory of Rivers as he had a lot of US hits in the 1960s, largely interpretations of other artists past hits – his breakthrough hit was Chuck Berry’s Memphis in 1964, taken from his Live At The Whiskey A Go-Go LP: Rivers was surely one of the few artists whose first two LPs were both live efforts. He never had a UK hit and seems to have enjoyed being a player in the LA music scene, quickly learning that owning song publishing is very lucrative and thus he signed up the young Jim Webb (and surely earned far more off Webb’s hits than he did from his own sizeable record sales).

Anyway, its pretty rare to find Rivers’ records here so I pounced on Rewind. Produced in 1967 by Lou Adler – then the magus of Californian pop – and featuring the Wrecking Crew, Rewind is lush LA pop with both sides of the LP finding Rivers opening with a different Motown hit (Baby I Need Your Lovin’, The Tracks Of My Tears). Then there are lots of Jim Webb tunes (none of which went on to be hits with other artists) and Paul Simon’s For Emily.

Rivers sings the hell out of these tunes and I really like his take on Baby I Need Your Lovin’ – obviously, he can’t out-sing Levi Stubbs, instead Johnny transforms the tune into a smoochy country rock flavoured number that I can imagine The Byrds admiring. Rivers is a fine singer and he croons this tune with the kind of charm Glen Campbell would employ on his hits. Oh, I checked and Johnny gave his final US concert last year, retiring at 81.

And here’s Johnny at the height of his fame on the Ed Sullivan show. Funny to think how straight he plays it while LA’s music scene was getting psychedelic at the time.

Joe Sun is a far more obscure figure than Rivers so I’d be surprised if many remember him (Wikipedia tells me he died in 2019). Old Flames is his 1978 debut album and it gave him his biggest hit on the US Country charts with the title track. Sun was what used to get called a “neo-traditionalist” ie a country singer who stayed true to the honky tonk sound the likes of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell pioneered. I got turned onto him by a Kiwi country head in the 1980s so was delighted to find Old Flames – Sun was the first to cut the title song – its an eloquent ballad that veers on being a cheating song while reaffirming the intimacy of a loving relationship – and is now far better known than he: Dolly Parton enjoyed a Country No 1 with it in 1980 (Joe’s version only got to No 14). More recently, the US pop singer Kesha cut a version with Parton guesting in 2017 - Kesha’s mother Patricia Rose Sebert co-wrote the song. I’ve not heard Kesha’s version but am aware of her due to the protracted and extremely acrimonious litigation she engaged in with Dr Luke, the pop impresario.

Here’s Joe shining on a great song. Lovely, sparse production really sells his voice and the song.

Sun never matched his debut 45’s success, although he did make some other fine albums over the next few years and then, it appears, with US interest tailing off he concentrated on his European fan base. Oddly, I don’t recall him ever playing London – I certainly would have brought a ticket to see him sing. One of the pleasures of the Old Flames album is the final track on side 2 is a reading of Lefty Frizzell’s Long Black Veil – to my mind, the finest murder ballad in all of country music. Before he sings LBV, Sun interviews the song’s writers – Danny Dill (lyrics) and Marijohn Wilkin (music) – and they delightfully narrate how this errie murder ballad took shape. Sun’s version is my second favourite – after Lefty’s, of course.

Here’s Lefty singing the original LBV. Note it was produced by Don Law, the guy who produced Robert Johnson some twenty+ years earlier! Lefty’s version is followed by an answer song by the co-writer Marijohn Wilkins – not bad at all.

Long Black Veil has been recorded many times over the years – when Johnny Cash and other country singers sing it they tend to get it right while, when rock musicians sing it, they tend to get it wrong: its plodding on The Band’s debut album, Rick Danko definitely not at his best, while Nick Cave turns it into mannered goth rock on his awful Murder Ballads album. That said, when Mick Jagger sang it with The Chieftains he does a better job than I expected, restrained compared to Cave’s bad actor reading.

LPs under my arm, I head back out into the rain. Time to meet Adrienne at the Coach & Horses, still a wonderful Soho watering hole, before we head into the Prince Edward. And Dear England? Its fabulous – smart, funny, engaging, life affirming, a play that celebrates Southgate’s efforts to employ intelligence and empathy in coaching football. Even though my shoes were – as Townes Van Zandt once sang – full of rain, I’d had a magnificent Soho evening.