MY LONDON LIFE: Photojournalism exhibitions, veteran R&B & young country singers + good/bad TV.
From heavy rain to bright sunshine, London proffered American musicians, intensive photography exhibitions and sofa time.
Owen Harvey’s photo of an LA lowrider and his “smurf” ride.
Anyone familiar with London will be aware that the weather can be crap for months on end. Having just endured the wettest April on record, May appeared to be continuing the relentless chilly, damp weather – Bank Holiday Monday being especially dire. And then the sun came out and our city breathed a huge sigh of relief. That said, bad weather meant I visited exhibitions and watched TV, taking buses/tubes before getting back on my bike again.
CHARLEY CROCKETT – Hoxton Hall
I’ve been to thousands of gigs across London over the past three decades but had never heard of Hoxton Hall before. Attending with my pal Steve Bunyan, we agreed to meet at a nearby pub called The Macbeth – with a name like that you have to pop inside – and found it not a haven for old thesp’s or murderous Scottish despots but a cocktail bar (thankfully still serving Guinness) hosting a concert by an American singer-songwriter called Shayfer James. Neither Steve or I had ever heard of him but once he began singing commanded an attentive audience. Shayfer was pleasant, somewhat earnest, not remarkable enough to stop us heading to our destination up the road.
Hoxton Hall, we were informed upon entering, is one of London’s last existing music halls. Across the late nineteenth/early twentieth century music hall was the working class’ primary entertainment format: in an era before movies existed music halls offered song, dance, comedy, drama and more. As Hackney was music hall central it felt appropriate to be entering Hoxton Hall – I imagined the likes of Marie Lloyd, Little Tich and Albert Chevalier all performing here at the dawn of the 20th Century.
The mind boggles at how much London (and the wider world) had changed since then, while at the same time, how some things have stayed the same: both Shayfer and Hoxton Hall’s headliner Charley Crockett are singing for their supper, relaying anecdotes and cracking jokes, just as their antecedents did when this hall (and The Macbeth) were first built.
As Charley didn’t remove his Stetson this is how we saw him.
Hoxton Hall exists over three narrow floors, the iron railings that I’ve seen in Walter Sickert’s paintings of music halls still in place. Steve and I headed up to the top floor, where once cabbages (and worse) would have been hurled at entertainers the audience disliked. It was an odd space – narrow and cramped, OK sight lines (if you are willing to lean forward), suitably atmospheric. Crockett came on in his cowboy gear – boots, jeans, stylish shirt, huge leather overcoat and a big white Stetson – sat on a stool and began playing acoustic guitar.
I’ve seen Charley several times, although this is the first time he’s played solo here since his UK debut at The Borderline (a basement venue just off Charing Cross Road, now gone) in 2017. That evening he played to a small audience but obviously possessed something special as, every time I have seen him since (this must be the sixth or seventh time), he’s played bigger venues with his fine band – in 2023 he sold out Shepherds Bush Empire (2200 seats). A couple of nights solo at the more intimate Hoxton Hall allows him, as he noted on stage, “to hold onto more of the money.”
Crockett’s performance mixed songs from across his albums – he knocks out around one a year – with covers: a decent version of the Flying Burrito Brothers’ Juanita alongside inept attempts at Townes Van Zandt’s Tecumsah Valley and Bob Dylan’s Billy The Kid (he didn’t finish either of these – seemingly forgetting the lyrics). Charley’s not obvious star material – he sings in a nasal voice that makes Dwight Yoakam sound like George Jones, is an average guitarist and writes songs that will never draw comparison with efforts by Merle Haggard or Tom T. Hall. What he does possess is the kind of thing Eddie Cochran once described as “can’t be found in books” ie a certain magnetism that has won his very raw boned country sound a wide, non-country audience. He’s droll and engaging – years of busking have taught him how to hold an audience – and handsome in an unconventional manner. He’s also (I realised last night) a lot better with his swinging band behind him.
Caught in the spotlight: Hoxton Hall still looks and feels like a music hall.
The mystery of Crockett’s success is this: he’s the only down-home country singer to win a youthful UK audience in decades. Gillian Welsh did so about twenty years ago - but she was much folkier and a better singer (and had David Rawlings’ stunning guitar playing accompanying her) than Charley. It appears that astute management and social media has won this raw boned Texan a far broader audience than his fellow Americana contemporaries: I doubt even celebrated veterans like Rodney Crowell or Marty Stuart could now match his UK ticket sales. If I was in music management I’d closely study CC’s rise from busker to theatre filler.
Oh, it appears that The Macbeth is where Amy Winehouse’s scumbag husband once dealt out a savage beating to its then landlord (for which he went to jail – thus she stupidly sang “free Blake” at Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday Celebration). Funny to think how, even 15 years ago, Hoxton was rougher and scruffier, Amy and Blake being exactly the kind of dodgy characters who could have held sway in a Victorian music hall.
Final note: with the weather being delicious I cycled to Hoxton and what a pleasure that was. London may be traffic congested and polluted but cycling around it is a joy.
BETTYE LAVETTE, Cadogan Hall
I don’t know Cadogan Hall’s history but would guess it was never a home to music hall artists. Located just off Sloane Square and, being all seated, its very comfy. Whenever I visit its always to see older artists – Chris Barber, Joe Brown, Ron Carter – and Monday night was 78-year old Bettye LaVette. As the aforementioned veterans tend to attract an audience close to their age, Cadogan Hall is rather formal: I got reprimanded by an usher for trying to take a photo of Bettye.
If you’re unaware of LaVette – and, oddly, it seems most people are: this was her first London concert in at least seven or eight years yet the Cadogan was barely a third full – she hails from Detroit and started singing as a teenager some sixty years ago. Brief early success faded and she found herself quickly forgotten by all but Europe’s soul music aficionados - until she was signed to LA indie label ANTI in 2005 and released the Joe Henry produced album I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise (here she interpreted songs by female songwriters with an uncompromising intensity). This gave LaVette a new audience and, since then, she’s recorded albums where she applies her fierce touch to songs by classic British rockers, Bob Dylan, the great African American female singers who came before her and such.
Having been forced to wait until she was kissing 60 to achieve any kind of status in the music industry has served to fuel LaVette’s intensity and her gigs are never nostalgic. Tonight she opened with a powerful reading of Dylan’s Things Have Changed then, for the next 90 minutes performed songs from recent albums, only looking to her R&B origins with a beautifully felt Let Me Down Easy. She introduced this, her most famous 60s soul tune, by noting how electronic dance music duo ODESZA, had sampled her vocals for their The Last Goodbye tune and it immediately became a huge club/online hit. I’ll simply note that the duo did an effective job but pumping house music has never been my thing. The kids helping this tune gain over one hundred million streams certainly weren’t at the Cadogan checking on the singer whose distinctive voice rides that banger.
Bettye fronts a powerful yet subtle quartet who deliver the R&B-rock sound she now specialises in. Savouring the spotlight, she emulated James Brown’s dance style (“I toured with James and we had some trouble”) and strode into the audience, tacking each song with an intensity that can’t be faked. Why the sparse audience? Beyond venue – and ticket prices – alienating an audience that might well have gone to see her at The Jazz Cafe (or a Hoxton venue), I think the answer lies in what has made Crockett so successful: his management have utilised social media/Youtube to spread the word, while Bett’s haven’t - the one UK profile for her fine 2023 album LaVette! was an interview in The Telegraph (here she slagged off Dylan for his lack of praise of her efforts). Both that newspaper and the subject matter appeal to an ageing demographic. Youtube clips with ODESZA are far more likely to bring in a younger audience.
I do like to be beside the seaside! Hardy’s most iconic image.
BERT HARDY – The Photographers’ Gallery
Soho’s The Photographers Gallery is, like Hoxton Hall, tall and narrow with several floors. Its a good space for experiencing photography, offering as it does very different exhibitions on different floors. At present it hosts both a contemporary photography competition – the images here leaning towards the experimental/conceptual (very few I engaged with) – and a retrospective of Bert Hardy’s work (many I engaged with).
Hardy (1913 – 1995) was one of the pioneers of British photojournalism, working largely for Picture Post (a photo-led publication that existed 1938 – 1957), covering WW2 and many aspects of ordinary British life. Wandering through the exhibition, I realised I was familiar with many of Hardy’s photos without knowing who took them – Hardy possessed a compassionate, witty eye and a real interest in his subjects. This ensures his best images continue to shine.
Hardy’s horse traders at Elephant & Castle (which used to serve as London’s largest horse fair). I love this image, its characters remind me of Caravaggio’s paintings of card sharks.
Its interesting how the likes of Don McCullen and David Bailey became British photography’s superstars while Hardy, from an older generation, doesn’t command such attention. Perhaps its because Don and David won fame in the 1960s, an exalted era where many creatives were being heralded (and continue to be so), while Hardy’s best work was simply seen as that of a working photographer, “a snapper”.
I really enjoyed Hardy’s myriad b&w images – he’s attracted to ordinary Brits, whether at war or by the seaside, trading horses or kids on the street, capturing the drama and humanity in everyday life. Bert’s hanging in Soho until June 2 and I suggest you muddle along and share my enjoyment.
Dirty work: Salgado’s gold miners, Brazil.
SEBASTIAO SALGADO – Somerset House
Brazil’s Sebastiao Salgado is contemporary photojournalism’s heavyweight champion – his b&w images of manual labourers and African refugees, landscapes of ice and sand, Mexican penitents and Amazonian Indians, are so striking they have the grandeur of old master paintings. Here, it appears, is humanity (and our world) in its most intense states: suffering, struggle, contemplation, exultation. Unlike Hardy, Salgado doesn’t do everyday stuff - he aims for a state of grandeur and having observed dozens of his images on display at Somerset House – where his work was being honoured in the Sony World Photography exhibition – left me exhausted, my eyes finally hoping for something gentler and brighter to alight on.
Which isn’t to suggest that I dislike Salgado, more to note that his images tend towards operatic intensity: displaying a smaller selection of them would likely have more impact – allow us to savour how exceptional each shot is – than seeing multitudes. Perhaps, as I came to Salgado’s exhibition after trekking through at least seven rooms filled with contemporary photographs selected for the Sony award, I was weary. This annual exhibition (which closed on May 6) gathers selected photojournalists’ work on specific projects and tours such. The selection didn’t do a great deal for me – much of the work focuses on contemporary issues and, while worthy, lacked the striking images that make me want to look and look again.
Bangladesh family on their way home from market.
Actually, there was one photographer on display who did make me look again - his name is Owen Harvey. I’m not familiar with his work but his images of LA’s Chicano culture were beautifully shot, he using the dry, hard light you find in Southern California to illuminate lowrider cars and tattooed young Latinas. That’s Harvey’s image of the youth standing on his crazy car I used at the top of this post. I was once in LA and my pal Emory Holmes, a native Angeleno, took me to see the lowriders bounce – somewhere in south central – and what a spectacle it was! For a city where the car is king these sculpted steel, slow moving, mutated celebrations of American industrial design are fitting – they’re not the car you go to the supermarket in, no, they’re art made by people who have no interest in museum “art”, instead they create beauty that celebrates their own urban environment. I’ll keep an eye out for Harvey.
Anyone interested in contemporary photojournalism (and in London this month) should check out the World Press Photo Exhibition at Borough Yards, SE1 9AD (tickets £10 – open until May 27 – I aim to visit in the next week).
BABY REINDEER - TV: One To Watch
It’s nice to be nice - unless it gains you a stalker… Donny’s going to learn a hard truth.
I imagine most people reading Yakety Yak have heard of – and perhaps watched – Baby Reindeer, it being Netflix’s left-field hit of ‘24. I’m also guessing most of you had never heard of Richard Gadd, the show’s creator, previously – even though he’s an award winning Scottish comedian. I certainly hadn’t (not that I follow comedy). And Baby Reindeer is anything but funny. Instead, its about stalking and sexual abuse and how one man’s desire to succeed in TV saw him drugged and raped – the old casting couch still operating – while his attempt at showing kindness towards a lonely woman creates a living nightmare. I’ve only watched 4.5 episodes so far – in one binge – and they proved such disturbing viewing I’m unsure I will endure the final 2.5 episodes.
Baby Reindeer is brilliantly written/performed – kudos to Gadd for not just turning his nightmarish experiences into such but for doing so in a manner that is never played for cheap laughs/thrills. I recall watching Misery – based on Stephen King’s fiction on a nightmarish female stalker – in a Madrid cinema and the audience cheered James Cann on as he battered Kathy Bates. Baby Reindeer will not, I’m certain, encourage you to cheer Donny Dunn if he throws Martha Scott down the stairs.
“Mental health” is shorthand many of us now routinely employ for the stress and strife that plagues our lives but the violent madness we see in Baby Reindeer – and the toll it exacts on Dunn – is far beyond what most of us will experience (thankfully/hopefully). I’ve been stalked once – by an individual I briefly dated – so recognised the traits on display here: the declarations of “love” and wild jealousy and episodes of unhinged behaviour. But it was nothing compared to what Dunn experiences. No violence. No terror. Unpleasant but little else. That stalking is a new urban disease reflects something about our hyper fast capitalist society. No, I don’t have any answers and I’m sure Baby Reindeer doesn’t proffer any. But as a mirror to London and all its alienation and isolation the series is terrifyingly close to the bone.
GEORGE MICHAEL: PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST – TV: One not to watch
Here’s George at his most earnest - what a gorgeous vocal he performs here!
My first ever Yakety Yak post was on George Michael, inspired as I was both by James Gavin’s fine biography of the man and the enjoyable Netflix doc Wham! When Channel 4 announced they were screening a doc on George made by Simon Napier Bell, a British pop chancer who briefly managed Wham!, I thought that, if nothing else, it would be camp, gossipy fun.
Boy, did I get it wrong. Napier Bell – who wrote an entertainingly gossipy memoir about his time in British pop in the 1960s – demonstrates here that he has no skill as a documentary maker. This is abysmally poor, relying on a dull group of talking heads – largely it appears drawn from Napier Bell’s London media mates – with no one who was close to George involved. Only tiny snippets of music appear – lacking the budget to license such - and everything is amateurish and rushed, inaccurate and dull.
Employing a conventional chronological format, we get George’s cradle to grave journey spelt out with a mix of hagiography and prurience. Its so shoddily made that, while dealing with a superstar pop icon, everything feels cheap, tacky. And did gay activist Peter Tatchell really meet teenage George pre-Wham in a club? Maybe later on but I seriously doubt the deeply closeted teen wannabe was parading around London’s gay clubs declaring how he was “going to be a pop star”.
George is one of London music’s doomed icons - a suburban dreamer who possessed a great melodic talent and found himself far more famous than he’d ever dreamed of. Fame and wealth didn’t provide George with a great deal of happiness and his long, slow public decline is one of pop’s sadder stories: by most accounts he was a generous, unpretentious man. His life and death deserve much better than Napier Bell’s hack work.
I wasted an hour of my time (before switching it off) on what is the worst music doc’ I’ve seen in recent years – don’t repeat my mistake.
Re music halls - sure you know Wilton's?
Right. If Bettye's managers were more hip to social media, LaVette would def enjoy more of a Mavis-style renaissance. She deserves it and we need it. Hope they get the memo.