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Dirty Old Town |
The
History Of Manchester Music |
Following the war, a young Salford
communist was to become one of the most influential artists
in British music history. Ewan MacColl, or Jimmie Miller as
he was known before desserting the army in 1940, wrote many
songs about the working class struggles in Britain, penning
many about Manchester, Salford and Lancashire. His work would
be covered by artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, George Michael,
Celine Dion and The Temptations, and influenced many
folk artists for years to come.
During these post-war days, ballroom dancing
was all the rage in Britain, and Manchester boasted its fair
share of ballrooms which helped launch the careers of jazz
and swing acts like the popular Lancashire trumpeter Eddie
Calvert, who was to go on and spend 9 weeks at the top of
the UK charts in 1953, enjoying success in the States too..
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1765 |
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The
Gentleman's Concerts |
Founded in 1765
by 26 amateur flute players, The Gentleman's Concerts are
the most important musical society in Manchester. By 1774
they have built their own Concert Rooms on Fountain Street
with capacity for an audience of 900. The building
lends its name to Concert Lane. They later move to new premises
on Lower Mosley Street (pictured left), on the site now
occupied by The
Midland Hotel, and in course of time, add other instruments
to the esemble. A full orchestra is completed around the
turn of the century. The society is wealthy, with would-be
subscribers having generally to wait three years before room
can be made for them and, in consequence, every classical
artist of renown who has visited England works
with the orchestra at some point.
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1848 |
June |
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Charles
Hallé |
Following the overthrow
of Louis Philippe in February 1848, the liberal provisional
government of the Second Republic ruled France. The poet
Alphonse de Lamartine was appointed president and offered
his multi-lingual friend, Charles
Hallé, a 28 year old out-of-work Anglo-German
musician,
the chance to become secretary to the French Embassy in Frankfurt,
Germany. Hallé turns down the
opportunity and, amidst an atmosphere of political unrest,
flees Paris for London a
fortnight later, just weeks before a stricter conservative
government is elected in France. He becomes friends with
many business leaders and celebrities, including
Charles Dickens and Robert Browning, conducting the occassional
concert and teaching piano for an income, with
many of his pupils also having escaped Paris, following the
bloody but unsuccessful workers' rebellion on 23 June 1848.
At the end of June, Manchester cloth printer Hermann Leo,
visits the musician in London with the sole purpose of offering
him a residency in Manchester, as the city was "quite ripe
to be taken in hand" and he was the "fittest man to stir
the dormant interest in the art." Hallé, who
was friends with Leo's banker brother in Paris,
agrees to the move and makes his first appearance on the
13th September 1848.
Hallé's plans to return to Paris On
2nd December 1848, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte III
was elected President of the Second Republic, largely on
peasant support
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1857 |
May |
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Art
Treasures Exhibition |
Manchester became
a city in 1853, and inspired by the the Great Exhibition
in 1851, the Dublin Exhibition
in 1853, and the Paris International
Exhibition in 1855, the city's increasingly affluent business
grandees, are motivated by a desire to demonstrate their
cultural attainment, and fund the Manchester
Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857. Based in a temporary
iron-and-glass structure next to Manchester Botanical Garden
(which later becomes White City, close to Old
Trafford Cricket Ground), it looks similar to the Crystal
Palace in
London.
The Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway Company
build a new station (which is now Old
Trafford Metrolink
station) which is used by the 1.3 million visitors to
the exhibition, which include Prince Albert & Queen Victora,
the King of Belgium, the Queen of the Netherlands, Louis
Napoleon, Benjamin Disraeli, William Ewart Gladstone, Lord
Palmerston, the 2nd Duke of Wellington, Charles Dickens,
Alfred Lord Tennyson, Florence Nightingale, Friedrich Engels,
Elizabeth Gaskell, John Ruskin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and
Maria Mitchell . To entertain the visitors, Charles
Hallé, a pianist and conductor of the Liverpool
Philharmonic, is
asked to organise an orchestra to perform a daily concert,
in addition to a daily organ recital, from the 5th May to
the 17th October 1857. It remains to this day, the largest
art exhibition in the world, with over 16,000 works on display. |
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1945 |
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The
Hallé Orchestra |
Anthony
Collins's Threnody for a Soldier Killed in Action |
In 1945, Barbirolli
and the Halle gave the premiere of Anthony Collins's Threnody
for a Soldier Killed in Action, based on sketches made by
the young English composer Michael Heming shortly before
he was killed in world war two. It is a poignant story, and
the gently melancholic pastoral tone still retains some of
the nostalgic beauty that must have moved British audiences
traumatised by destruction and losse. |
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1950 |
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Ewan MacColl |
The Asphalter’s Song |
Broughton-born socialist activist Ewan
MacColl makes his recording debut with the '78 folk single
'The Asphalter’s
Song; I’m
Champion at Keeping ‘em Rolling'. Although previously
a writer, actor, poet and political activist, this is the
start of a highly influential recording career in folk music. |
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1951 |
September |
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George
Formby |
Zip
Goes A Million |
In 1951, George
Formby hadn't made a film for five years, with the British
public seemingly wanting to forget about World War II, so
it is a big surprise when he makes his comeback in the stage
musical 'Zip Goes A Million’, playing Percy Piggott,
a Lancashire window cleaner who inherits a multi-million
dollar fortune on the condition that he can spend $1 million
of it in 30 days without letting anyone know what he is up
to. Based on the 1902 novel 'Brewster's Millions', it opens
in Coventry on the 4th September before bringing George home
to Manchester, where it breaks all the box-office records
at The
Palace Theatre during its run from the 17th September
to 16th October 1951. The show then moves to the West End
in London where
it is performed 544 times until the 7th February 1953. The
show produces the songs "Saving Up For Sally", "Pleasure
Cruise", "Ordinary People" and "Zip Goes
A Million". |
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Philomena Lynott,
a young white Irish mother of a baby from a short
relationship with a black Afro-Guyanese father, looks for
a place she can safely raise a mixed race baby out of wedlock.
The over-zealous catholic nuns at the Birmingham hostel
in which she is living, try to force her into giving up her
only child for adoption. Not being able to return to 1950s
Ireland, with its poverty and racial
bigotry, she relocates to
Moss Side, Manchester, bringing her one year old son, Phil
Lynott, with her. |
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November |
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The
Hallé Orchestra |
The
Free Trade Hall Reopens |
On the 16th
November 1951, Queen Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth the
Queen Mother) opens the reconstructed Free Trade Hall in
Manchester - the fourth building of that name to stand on
the site in St. Peter's Field, the scene of the Peterloo
massacre of 1819. The building is completely rebuilt from
the bomb damage it suffered during World War II with a new
hall constructed behind two walls of the original facade.
The occasion is marked by a magnificent orchestral concert
by The
Hallé
Orchestra, returning to what had been their home since
their formation in 1858. The finale features Britain's
best-loved contralto, Blackburn-born Kathleen
Ferrier, who had become a huge star during
World War II, singing Elgar’s ‘Land
of Hope and Glory’. The Manchester Guardian report
"lovers
of this tune will fear that never again can they hope to
hear it in such glory". The Free Trade Hall (or The New
Free Trade Hall as it becomes known), goes on to host many
famous concerts until its closure in 1996. (the most famous
of which being by Bob Dylan in 1966 and The Sex Pistols
in 1976). It reopens as The
Radisson Edwardian Hotel in 2004.
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1952 |
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Ewan
MacColl |
Dirty
Old Town |
Salford
folk legend Ewan MacColl releases his most famous song.
Originally composed for an interlude to cover an awkward
scene change back in his 1949 play "Landscape with Chimneys",
which played at the influential Theatre Workshop in Manchester,
a group he had set up following the war in 1945 with his
actress wife Joan Littlewood. Whilst they remained friends
and collaborators, the couple had divorced in 1950 and Littlewood
later moved the theatre to London, much to MacColl's disagreement.
The song, written about industrial Salford, namechecks
local landmarks including "the gas works croft" on Liverpool
Street and the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal ("the old
canal"). The original lyrics contained
the line, "smelled the smoke on the Salford wind." but
MacColl was pressured into changing this by Salford Council
to "smelled
the spring on the smoky wind." It is later covered by
many artists with Rod Stewart singing "smelled
the spring on the Salford wind", on his 1969 album 'An
Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down'. Other famous covers
include Donovan (1964),
Roger Whittaker (1968), The Dubliners (1968),
The Pogues (1985), Townes Van Zandt (1996), The Specials
(1996), and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (2009), amongst many
others. |
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April |
On 28th April
1952, George
Formby, suffering from ill health, decides to
withdraw from 'Zip
Goes a Million'. On the way to the theatre
to inform the producers, he suffers a heart attack. It takes
the doctors five days to diagnose the
coronary and admit him to hospital. He is treated for
both the heart attack and a morphine addiction, staying
in hospital for nine weeks before
returning home to Lytham St Annes, Lancashire. |
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June |
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The
Hallé Orchestra |
Iain
Hamilton's Symphony no.2 |
On
the 10th June 1953, Manchester's Hallé
Orchestra perform the world premier of Scottish
composer Iain Hamilton's "Symphony no.2 for Orchestra" at
the Cheltenham Festival of British Contemporary Music.
Originally written two years previously, it goes on
to become one of Iain Hamilton's most popular orchestral
works |
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November |
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Lee
Lawrence |
Crying
In The Chapel |
Salford-born
crooner Lee
Lawrence releases his biggest hit with his cover of Darrell
Glenn's gospel song, "Crying In The Chapel". Born Leon Siroto,
to opera singing parents with the Carl Rosa Opera Company,
he had studied opera in Italy for three years at the age
of 16. After returning to England at the start of the Second
World War, he enlisted in the Royal Tank Regiment and sang
with the Entertainments National Service Association, where
he is noticed by the BBC. By late 1951, he was topping the
bill at the Shepherd's Bush Empire above the likes of Peter
Sellars and Morecambe & Wise and was being promoted as "Britain's
outstanding singing star", signing to Decca Records.
Across the Atlantic in July 1953, Darrell Glenn had reached
no.6 on the Billboard charts with his track "Crying In The
Chapel". Covers by June Valli (no.4 in July), Ella Fitzgerald
(no.15 in July), Rex Allen (no.8 in August), and Art Lund
(no.23 in September) also chart in the same year. By the
20th November, the song reaches British audiences with
Lee Lawrence's version peaking at no.7 in the UK charts.
The song is later covered by the likes of Elvis (1960), Little
Richard (1963), The Platters (1964), Bob Marley (1968) and
Don McLean (1974). |
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December |
After guest
conducting six operas for The Royal Opera House in London,
Sir
John Barbirolli turns down the prestigious opportunity
to be Musical Director there, prefering to stay in Manchester
with his beloved Halle
Orchestra. He had also previously
turned down invitations to take up more prestigious and
lucrative conductorships.at the London Symphony
Orchestra,and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Later (in 1971)
his biographer,
Charles Reid, would give the reason that "his Manchester
kingdom is a kingdom indeed. He is not manacled or chivied
in his choice of programmes. Broadly speaking he conducts
only what he loves. His kingdom approximates to a conductor's
paradise." [click here for the biography] |
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Eddie
Calvert |
Oh
Mein Papa |
Following World
War II, dancehalls were popular all over Britain,
with the sound of orchestral swing music providing the backdrop
for the youth to dance to. It's the perfect environment for
Lancashire trumpet player Eddie Calvert, who is heavily influenced
by the local brass bands, to become a major star.
Following his exposure on TV with the Stanley
Black Orchestra, an enthusiastic announcer introduces him
as the 'Man With The Golden Trumpet', a nickname that is
to stick with him for the rest of his career. His regular
radio and TV appearances make him a household name and,
on the 18th December 1953, he tops the UK charts for an incredible
nine weeks and reaches the Billboard Top 10 in the USA with
his instrumental cover of the Swiss musical tune "O Mein
Papa", renamed "Oh Mein Papa" for a UK audience..
He is awarded the first ever gold disc for
an instrumental track (the song remains the best selling
instrumental still to this day) and his hit inspires US Army
Band vocalist Eddie Fisher to record his own version, renamed
with the full English translation of "Oh My Papa", which
later goes on to top the charts in America and reach no.9
in the UK at the same time Eddie Calvert is still no.1. |
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Philomena Lynott,
struggling to raise a child alone and hold down three jobs
(at a dress shop near John Lewis on Market Street,
as a barmaid and, on Saturdays, at a market selling Dannimac
coats), sends a 4-year-old Phil
Lynott back to Dublin to be raised by her mother, Sarah,
whom in later life he will write a song about. |
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1955 |
April |
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Eddie
Calvert |
Cherry
Pink (And Apple Blossom Wine) |
Over a year
after breaking all UK records, "the man with the golden trumpet", Eddie
Calvert, becomes the first British
instrumentalist to achieve two number ones. with his instrumental
cover of Catalan musician Louiguy's
Latin jazz composition "Cerisiers Roses et Pommiers
Blancs", which was originally recorded in French by
André Claveau with lyrics by Jacques Larue in 1950,
and also in English by Georgia Gibbs in 1951, with lyrics
by Mack David.
It is the instrumental version, translated
into English as "Cherry
Pink (and Apple Blossom Wine)", that is more famous
thanks largely to two different versions which both top
the UK charts in early 1955. The Lancashire trumpet player's
cover (released 8th April
1955) spends four weeks at no.1 in May, following an earlier
mambo version by Pérez
'Prez' Prado & His Orchestra featuring trumpeter Billy
Regis, taken from the Jane Russell blockbusting film 'Underwater',
in which she dances to the song. Prado's version
spends a whopping 10 weeks at the top of the US Billboard
charts and 2 weeks in the UK during March 1955.
Whilst still topping the chart with "Cherry
Pink", Eddie Calvert also enjoys having another '45rpm single
in the Top 20 as his instrumental version of the popular
song from the Kismet musical, "Stranger
In Paradise", reaches no..14
(released 13th May 1955).
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Eddie
Calvert |
John & Julie |
With "Cherry
Pink" still riding high in the charts (on 29th July
1955), Lancashire trumpeter Eddie Calvert repeats the feat
of having two 45's in the Top 20 at the same time, as his
theme tune for William Fairchild's British comedy film "John
& Julie" reaches no.6.
Starring Peter Sellers and Syd James, the
charming film tells the story of an 8-year-old girl who runs
away with her friend to London to fulfil her dream of seeing
the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, meeting various eccentrics
on the way. [click here to buy] |
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December |
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Lee
Lawrence |
Suddenly There's A Valley |
Salford operatic
crooner Lee Lawrence's cover of Gogi Grant's 1955 US Top
10 hit is one of three different versions competing in the
UK charts (2nd Dec 1955) and one of many
more recorded around the same time. He reaches no.14 whilst
Petula Clark (no.7) and Jo Stafford (no.12) fare better.
The song is also covered in the same year by Julius La Rosa
(no.20 in the US), The Mills Brothers (US no.45), Jane Froman,
and, in German (under the title "Folge dem Rat Deines"),
Vera Lynn. A French language version by Edith Piaf, ""Soudain
une Valléé" outsells all versions in Europe,
although she never performs the song live. With Bill Haley
top of the charts with "Rock Around The
Clock" the same week, widely considered to be the
song that, more than any other, brought rock and roll into
mainstream culture around the world, it's clear that the
times are changing for the post-war easy listening artists
and this cover is to be Lee Lawrence's last ever chart appearance. |
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1956 |
March |
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Eddie
Calvert |
Zambesi |
"The Man
With The Golden Trumpet" reaches no.13 in the UK charts
on the 9th March 1956 with his instrumental cover of South
African accordionist Nico Carstens uplifting track "Zambesi" featuring
the Norrie Paramor Orchestra. It perhaps begins Eddie Calvert's
love affair with South Africa, where he would, later in life,
live and die. |
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May |
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The
Hallé Orchestra |
Ralph
Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 8 in D minor |
On the 2nd
and 3rd May 1956, at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester's
Hallé Orchestra, conducted by Sir
John Barbirolli, perform the World Premier of English
composer, Ralph Vaughan
Williams' remarkably inventive Symphony No.8 in D minor.
Written between 1953
and 1955, it is the shortest of his nine symphonies and the
first of his works that he allows to be numbered |
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The
Three Kayes |
Ivory
Tower |
A television
appearance rockets identically dressed and equally blonde
coiffured singing trio The Three Kayes, to fame. Named after
their manager, Carmen Kaye, and featuring 26 year old Oldham
girl Carol
Lindsey, their cover of the popular 1956 track "Ivory
Tower" reaches no.20 in the UK charts on 25th May 1956. |
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September |
Back living
with his mother in Moss Side, Manchester, a 6-year-old Phil
Lynott attends Princess Road Junior School. His school
report gives him a "disappointing" E for
Punctuality and a C in Music |
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1959 |
July |
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The
Hallé Orchestra |
Milner's Variations For Orchestra |
Sir
John Barbirolli and Manchester's Halle
Orchestra give he first performance of
Anthony Milner's religious 'Variations For Orchestra' at
the Cheltenham Festival of British Contemporary Music in
July 1959. It is described as being "a rosary in sound,
a musical meditation along the stations of the cross".
It is to be the Halle's final performance at Cheltenham,
ending a relationship dating back to 1947, after the
festival organisers decide that the cost of funding The
Halle's world premiere performances is too expensive. |
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