Jen Jenny B

I’ve been into music probably since birth in February 1958 and it plays a massive part in my life – it’s a part of me. My first memorable experience was the indescribable feeling I experienced lying in my bed and listening to the wireless playing Theme From A Summer Place by Percy Faith & His Orchestra which went into the charts mid-January 1960 and reached #1 six weeks later on February 22nd 1960 – a few weeks after my second birthday. Mum always had the wireless on and used to dance to the music, moving the carpet sweeper back and forth in time to the music. I loved it! Dad was into classical music so I was introduced to this at a very young age, too. I loved that, too. Our land lady who lived upstairs used to hear me sing and wanted to pay for me to have my voice trained, but Mum wasn’t having any of it. I didn’t know this until many years later!

All through my childhood, I sang and danced to the songs on the wireless, the radio, the TV (Ready Steady Go which later became Top Of The Pops). I sang in the school choir and played recorder at primary school. There were so many fantastic songs during the sixties and wherever there was a radio on somewhere, I would hang around just to listen to it. I fell in love with the Motown sound but also loved music of many different types. I had many jobs throughout those years – cleaning the brass in the second hand shop down the road – YES, there was a radio in there!!! I started a paper-round when I was 11 which gave me some money to spend. It went on records – mainly from a shop over the road which sold ex-juke box records as they were cheap. We used to pick up old 78” records, too, from jumble sales which we went to with Mum – they were made of wax and would melt/buckle in the sun!

At 11, I started secondary school and that is where my love and passion for music escalated. This was 1969, when many great Motown tracks were in the charts and at school, we were allowed to bring our records to play in the lunch hour in Room Y. For me it was magic. The Jackson 5 were my idols and I always felt an affinity with Michael as we were the same age! Diana Ross & The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas to name but a few. The Skinhead era had begun and I loved the reggae music, which was also finding itself in the charts – Liquidator by Harry J All Stars was one of them. I started to go to youth clubs with my friends where music was always played and we danced all evening. I got into funk that year, too – Soul Limbo by Booker T and the MG’s was being played in the youth clubs along with Soul Clap and many other records on the Stax Label. I started clubbing that year – the Locarno in Streatham (later Cat’s Whiskers in the same year, then The Studio in 1984, then the Ritzy in 1990, then Caesars in 1995) had Saturday afternoon sessions for young people and I’d be there with my school friends. The music being played here was chart music which was great as there was so many fantastic tracks in the charts at that time, but I hungered for the funk. The same year, I found out about the Croydon Suite through some of the other young people from the Locarno, which held similar afternoon sessions but on a Sunday. My parents would have gone mental if they’d have known I’d got on the bus to Croydon alone (none of my school friends wanted to go). I had no fear. In my element here, nearly all of the music being played was funk – James Brown, Sly & The Family Stone, Rufus Thomas, Booker T & The MG’s, The Staple Singers to mention a few. I would be in a dream world, buzzing, travelling back on the bus in the late afternoon/early evening mulling through the happy memories of meeting new friends and dancing to the amazing music! At school also, I belonged to the after school recorder group where I played descant, treble, tenor and bass recorders and we played at many school concerts which also involved large events where many

schools participated. I also belonged to the school choir where practice was also after school. Another group I joined via Girl Guides and the local church (we were not religious by the way), was a group called the Pathfinders. We used to go on many hikes and visits and the leaders, a married couple, would open their house on a Saturday night and invite us round with our records. They also had musical instrument, so I used to mess around on the piano. They also lent me their acoustic guitar which I learned to play and we would have sing-songs!.

During the early seventies, the afternoons at the Locarno and the Croydon Suite had ceased and my club going changed. I joined different youth clubs in different areas and made more friends. I also got into ice skating, which is a whole different story! With the music now, I loved the reggae so much that I started going to reggae clubs, mainly on a Tuesday and Thursday night at the RACS in Tooting. The DJ there was Danny King and also Neville King who is still going strong and hasn’t changed in the slightest!. He also played at a club on Sundays called the Georgian in Croydon, another place called Links Hall just around the corner to me, and Providence House in Clapham Junction. I used to go and buy records at both Joe’s Hip City and Desmond’s Hip City in Atlantic Road, Brixton. I also remember Count Shelley, Jah Shaka, Coxsone and Fatman sounds and went to a few of the dances they played at. It was magic seeing them setting up the sound systems with all of the speakers on top of each other and around the rooms – what a sound!!!! There were some amazing tracks that came out in 1971 – Curtis Mayfield, Move On Up (get a right work out dancing to that!), Betty Wright, Clean Up Woman, Isaac Hayes Theme from Shaft. The Beginning Of The End, Funky Nassau, The Undisputed Truth, Smiling Faces Sometimes for example. I also went to the Lyceum on a Monday night from around 1973 and various other clubs when the disco kind of took off and the Philly Sound was hitting us more – MFSB TSOP, Love Unlimited Love’s Theme, First Choice Armed and Extremely Dangerous, Temptations Law of the Land. This was a very exciting time with so many amazing tracks and artists and the dancing took on a more free and expressive style. I recall Labelle performing their new single at the time, Lady Marmalade on one of the Monday nights. The clubs seemed to divide between commercial and specialist – I recall heading for places where the music was more exciting and obscure – the underground scene I guess you would call it. There used to be a chain of clubs called Bird’s Nest and all located near stations. I used to go to the one in Waterloo, but Paddington was THE one for the best music!!!

Crackers – well that was the place to be on a Friday lunch time/afternoon. I used to bunk off work to go down there 1975/6– couldn’t wait to get in and never went back to work. That’s where the real dancers went – eg Trevor Shakes, Dez Parkes – intimidated me to the core and I always stayed around the edges doing my own thing!!! Never knew who the DJ’s were at that time, nobody used to really bother with that aspect apart from the fact that you know if you go somewhere on a certain day and time, that good DJ would be there! That place was magic – it was underground and not many people really knew about it. 1976 saw some great music coming out – El Coco, Let’s Get It Together; Stratavarious I Got Your Love; The Trammps Disco Inferno; Miami Kill That Roach; Ten Per Cent Double Exposure; Love Unlimited High Steppin’ Hip Dressin Fella; Arthur Prysock When Love Is New – the list is massive!!! Also throngs used to go to pubs on the Old Kent Road – it was like clubland – Greg Edwards would be playing at the Dun Cow and other pubs like the Frog & Nightgown, Kentish Drovers, Gin Palace, Thomas A Becket and Bricklayers Arms would also be amazing!! Also in 1975/6 we hit Global Village in Villiers Street. Used to go there with about 20 of us and go in and out of the various rooms – it was big in there! The gay clubs were also the places

to be – the music was always electric and I recall at the time, some guys used to act gay. My ex husband used to dance with his mate to El Bimbo!

I stepped away from the club scene when my eldest son was on the way and born in March 1978, but never got away from the music. In 1980 I started taping music off the pirate radio stations, LWR, Horizon etc – I had no money to buy records. I taped from 1980 to 1986 and I still have all my tapes. We had parties in the house every Saturday and I would mix the music from my cassette tapes to my reel to reel and leave it playing for hours. Apparently our parties were notorious! We used to put hardboard down over the carpets and then take it up and store it the next day for the following week. My sister and her friend used to babysit my son while we started off in the pub and then came back with our entourage after closing time!

I started going to the Pineapple Dance Studios in 1982 and went to classes until around 1986 and also started going back out to the clubs again.

So many fantastic tracks came out late seventies, early eighties. Up to now I have never lost my passion for music. I did spend a few years not playing anything but it was revived after I was asked to do a show on the radio October 2023. My love was revitalised and my passion has just grown and grown. My grandson also shares my passion and plays a lot of the old songs on the piano. Keep the music alive and get the youngsters involved! They love it and so do I.

Music is My Life, Music Is My World.