This year has been special for Beatles fans. More than 50 years after they broke up, a new Beatles song called “Now and Then” appeared last month. Featuring all four members, it was an unexpected but fitting conclusion to the recording career of this unparalleled band. It was also accompanied by an evocative video that tugged at the heartstrings one last time.
“Mendips” – John Lennon’s childhood home in Liverpool
My Beatles journey began in high school, when I discovered my sister’s old Beatles albums. That was 40 years ago, but I’ve remained a fan ever since. And while my collection has expanded to include everything from Antonio Carlos Jobim to Bajofondo Tango Club, the enduring influence of the Beatles is abundantly clear in other favourites such as Crowded House and Jellyfish.
3 Savile Row – former headquarters of the Beatles’ business empire
When I look back, I see that a significant amount of my travel has been Beatles-related. The most obvious trip, of course, was a 2005 trip to Liverpool. While there, we visited the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. But we also visited their early 1960s haunts such as the famous Cavern Club and The Grapes pub. We even stayed at the Adelphi Hotel – the top hotel in town in the 1960s, and the very definition of “faded grandeur” by the time we stayed there. You can read more about this trip in this post from 2015.
Abbey Road Studios, St. John’s Wood, London
Just as memorable was my November 2014 trip to London, England. I attended several great musical events while in London, but I also took an extended tour of Beatles sights. In addition to the Apple headquarters on Savile Row, I saw the Abbey Road Studios where almost all of those great songs were recorded. I even crossed Abbey Road, as you can see at the very top of this post. But I also saw several other places that were less obvious parts of the Beatles story. You can read more about that day in this December 2014 post.
Street entrance to the Cavern Club in Liverpool
London and Liverpool – those aren’t surprising Beatles destinations. But there’s more. On a trip to New York City, we stopped by the “Strawberry Fields” portion of Central Park and the adjacent “Dakota Building” where John Lennon spent the last years of his life. And, like I have on many of my travels, I also found a very rare Beatles-related record as a souvenir. On this occasion, it was a very elaborately packaged Paul McCartney solo vinyl single from a shop in Greenwich Village.
The Weeklings, with string and horn sections, live at Monmouth University’s Pollak Theatre.
On a completely separate trip, I found myself at Monmouth University in the state of New Jersey…for a Beatles symposium! My friend (and fellow Beatles fan) Anthony heard about an academic conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1968 “The Beatles” album (a.k.a “The White Album”). Well, why not? You can read about that conference in this post from November 2018. Pictured above is a concert we saw at the conference…The Weeklings were brilliant, and played most of The White Album live!
Paul McCartney live in Halifax, Nova Scotia (July 2009)
We’ve seen Ringo Starr in concert a couple of times: once at Casino Rama (north of Toronto), and another time (just last year) right here in Kingston. And while I saw Paul McCartney in Toronto when I lived there in the early 1990s, we also saw him many years later in…Halifax, Nova Scotia! We were visiting friends in Halifax but managed to include Paul’s concert as well. You can read about the 2009 concert in this post from 2015.
Poster for an upcoming Beatles cover band concert (Budapest, Hungary – June 24, 1991)
The Straight Eights live at Castro’s Lounge (Toronto, Ontario)
Unexpected links are a great part of travel. And while this post features previously published photos, I’ve just unexpectedly discovered some “new” photos from prior travels. I’ll be sharing some of those in my next post…coming soon!
It’s been a while since I’ve done a trip like that, although I still attend a lot of concerts. So, where would I go now?
The first place that comes to mind is South Africa. Regular readers of this blog will know that I saw (and met!) the late Johnny Clegg many times. Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album remains one of my all-time favourites. “The Indestructible Beat of Soweto” is a great compilation of music from South Africa. I really enjoyed seeing Ladysmith Black Mambazo when they came to Kingston. And Ladysmith Black Mambazo recently collaborated with South African Jeremy Loops on a fun single called “This Town”. It would be great to see this live, in the country where it was made.
I enjoyed seeing a small tango orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina. But since then, I have discovered the music of Bajofondo. The band members are from both Argentina and Uruguay. They use local music, such as tango, as a starting point…but take it in some very interesting modern directions. Since poor weather stopped me from getting to Uruguay, wouldn’t it be cool to see something like this in Montevideo?
But it is not necessary to go halfway across the world. There are some American artists who could form the basis for a fun musical trip. I have great respect for Jon Batiste from New Orleans, Louisiana: I was singing the praises of his “We Are” album even before it received a bunch of Grammy nominations. A trip to New Orleans could also include Trombone Shorty, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (who we recently saw in Kingston)…the list goes on.
I’ve already seen the Weeklings perform live…in Monmouth, New Jersey, of all places. However, they were so compelling that I’d love to see them again. Their cover versions (especially of Beatles songs) are amazing, but their original compositions are great too. And I recently discovered that they sometimes play live at Daryl’s House, in Pawling, New York. It’s a cozy venue, and is operated by none other than Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates fame). Wouldn’t that be a fun part of a trip to New York City?
I shared some Weeklings videos in a music-related post from a couple of years ago…if you like the above two, you’ll probably find these ones even better.
And what about all those Canadian music trips I could do? Pagliaro in Montreal…trips like that could keep me occupied for years!
If you followed my trip to Abbey Road last November, then you can probably guess why we incorporated a visit to Liverpool into our 2005 Wales holiday: to see the Beatles sights in this northern England city. To make the experience as authentic as possible, we stayed at the Adelphi Hotel: it is an ancient place that would have been the top hotel in town during the 1950s and 1960s. Guests have included Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Roy Rogers (and his horse Trigger!).
Prior to becoming global superstars, the Beatles gained an intensely devoted following in their hometown of Liverpool. The venue most associated with them is the Cavern Club on Mathew Street, where they played hundreds of shows “before the fame”. It was a damp, dingy and crowded underground venue dripping with condensation that nonetheless attracted throngs to each Beatles performance.
Near the Liverpool waterfront on a blustery day in northern England
One would think that such an important sight would have been preserved as a tourist sight. Nonetheless, it was in fact “filled in” in 1973 to accommodate an underground rail line. Some say that the Cavern was not saved because there was some lingering resentment over the “local boys who left”. Using the original plans and some of the original materials, a “new” underground Cavern Club was soon built in the same general area and it has been filled with tourists ever since. This is the Cavern you see in the photo at the top of this post.
Our van for the National Trust tour of the Lennon and McCartney childhood homes in Liverpool, England
While it hosts bands of all types, during the daytime almost everybody there is a tourist attracted by the Beatles connection. Not wanting to miss out, we went down there to see what it was like. A passable guitarist sang Beatles songs on the stage. We ordered Cokes, as many of the lunchtime attendees would have done in the Beatles’ day, and (along with a lot of tourists) managed to get a small feel for what it might have been like in the early 1960s.
Before going down into the Cavern, we stopped at The Grapes. This is a nearby Mathew Street bar where the Beatles would sometimes relax before or after shows at the Cavern. Again, most Beatles fans know this. A couple of local patrons offered to take our picture, which we thought was a nice gesture. It soon became clear that they were hoping for some money or drinks for their trouble!
“Mendips” – John Lennon’s childhood home in Liverpool
While it was relatively expensive, we then went on a National Trust tour of the boyhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. A full-time housekeeper lives in each one and the only way to get inside them is by taking the National Trust tour from downtown Liverpool. Advance reservations are required, as only a limited number of people can visit each day. Indoor photographs are not allowed.
John’s home was first…and it might be a revelation for some. Although Lennon wrote a song called “Working Class Hero” and rebelled against privilege from time to time, he actually grew up in a relatively posh home (it even had a name: “Mendips”) with his aunt. Mendips has been preserved as it would have been in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We saw the front “foyer” where John and Paul would practice their vocal harmonies because the wall tiles resulted in great acoustics.
20 Forthlin Road (centre left) – Paul McCartney’s childhood home in Liverpool
From there we went to Paul McCartney’s former home at 20 Forthlin Road. This was much more modest – a cramped row house where Paul lived with his brother and father (his mother died when Paul was just 14). We saw the living room where John and Paul composed some of their early songs “eyeball to eyeball”. As with Mendips, the house has been restored to how it would have been when Paul actually lived there. Although it was much humbler than John’s house, it would have been filled with music as Paul’s father had once been a bandleader. The housekeeper here even bore a passing facial resemblance to Paul and naturally had the same Liverpool accent.
If you are interested in the history of the Beatles, visiting the National Trust houses is probably the best way to see “The Beatles’ Liverpool”. The Cavern is also worth a peek but be aware that, out of necessity, the authenticity is just a little more compromised.
Last Saturday was “Record Store Day” and we drove to Ottawa to see what was available in the record stores of our nation’s capital. It reminded me of the interesting music I’ve picked up in my travels: each record has its own story, above and beyond the actual music.
The photo at the top of this post is one of my favourite finds. For some unknown reason, the Soviet record label Melodiya decided to release a 4-track EP (7″, 33 rpm) containing seemingly random tracks from Paul and Linda McCartney’s 1971 “Ram” album. When I was “crate-digging” in a Tallinn, Estonia used record store, I found this pressing from Riga (now in Latvia, but then part of the U.S.S.R.). While I can’t speak Russian, I know the sounds of the Cyrillic alphabet and was able to phonetically confirm that this was in fact a release from the former Beatle. I picked up some fascinating Soviet LPs there too…but I’ll keep the focus on 7″ records today, as they are easier to pick up while traveling.
A Czechoslovakian 7″ single from Dean Reed, the “Red Elvis”
Speaking of the Soviet era, I picked up some fascinating 45s in Prague last September. Some were just Czechoslovakian pressings of hits by Western artists but the Dean Reed 45 pictured above was something I would never find in Canada.
Dean Reed went nowhere in the U.S.A. as a singer and traveled the world in search of fame and revolution. He ended up based in East Germany, where he was proudly paraded by the authorities as a genuine American rock star and revolutionary. He did, in fact, enjoy immense popularity in the Eastern Bloc…at least for a while. His ersatz-Elvis recordings sound rather hokey now but there wasn’t much else available. Alas, he drowned under mysterious circumstances outside of East Berlin in the mid-1980s. If you’re interested in his bizarre story, there is a book (“Comrade Rockstar”, by Reggie Nadelson) about Reed and it has long been rumoured that Tom Hanks would make a movie about this forgotten musician.
Karel Gott’s “Beatles” single
Karel Gott also found success in the Eastern Bloc during the 1970s but, unlike Dean Reed, still enjoys some popularity today. Like many people who lived during that difficult time, he made certain compromises in order to preserve his career in a totalitarian state. The above single does not feature the Beatles, but the A-side is a Czech-language tribute to the Fab Four (although it sounds nothing like them). I found this single in the same grim record store that yielded the Dean Reed record. Both were very cheap: I suspect it is because they come from a time that many people would like to forget.
Johnny Clegg’s 1987 “Asimbonanga” single was not attracting attention in Helsinki
Johnny Clegg is one of my favourite musicians. Best known in North America for contributing “Scatterlings of Africa” to the Rain Man soundtrack, he bravely led racially-integrated bands during the Apartheid era in South Africa and continues to release genre-crossing and thought-provoking records today. I wrote about Johnny last year in this post. Alas, it doesn’t appear that he is very popular in Finland: I found the above French pressing of his “Asimbonanga” single in the bargain bin of a Helsinki record store.
Reality is stranger than fiction: the Rutles “I Must Be In Love” single
I never imagined that the above single could exist. The Rutles were a Beatles parody band created by some Monty Python alumni and eventually were the subject of the brilliant rockumentary “All You Need is Cash”. The soundtrack is also outstanding and highly recommended for Beatles fans. The parody was so well-received in England that I found this single in a London record shop last November. It was an unexpected souvenir of the same trip that took me to Abbey Road and various other Beatles landmarks.
Coming up next week: I’m on the road again! Using some accumulated Air Miles, I’m visiting a place that I somehow overlooked during my year of extended travel. Stay tuned for the big reveal!
Waking up at 4:45 a.m. on Monday, December 1 was a somewhat cruel way to start the last day of my travel year. It was actually kind of fun, though, to dash through the streets of pre-dawn London to the nearest Piccadilly Line tube station (see photo above – it’s Russell Square). I had a good reason…I needed to get to Heathrow and fly back home.
Russell Square isn’t very busy before 6:00 a.m.
I thought I would be rather sad about ending what has been a wonderful year of adventure, especially after ending on such an unexpected high note in London. While there was certainly a slight sense of sadness, or at least nostalgia, I also found myself craving a return to “regular” life. I was ready to work. I looked forward to preparing fresh meals at home rather than eating out every day. I was excited about my upcoming curling matches and hopeful that my slowly-improving shoulder injury would permit a not-too-distant return to the hockey rink. Most of all, though, I was looking forward to devoting more time to friends and family.
What some people will do to get a photo of the pedestrian crossing at Abbey Road in London…
Even so, I couldn’t do everything at once. There was a lot of “administrative work” that needed to be done in short order. I had to set up a home office for my new job. Various appointments had been accumulating. The car needed a tune-up and the driveway needed a lot of shovelling. The to-do list was very, very long but I was actually excited about tackling it.
Everybody has a travel threshold. Some can only last a day or two before returning home. Some need years on the road to “re-charge”. After about nine months of roughly half-time travel, I had hit my threshold just as I was returning home from England with no further travel plans. The timing was perfect.
Rather small building at one of London’s famed Inns of Court
On a couple of occasions since returning home, I have found myself ready to plan some more travel…only to realize that there is nothing left to plan. There are currently no “bucket list” items demanding attention. My wife and I are planning a quick big city getaway in January, and there is a chance that I will go skiing in early March… but there is really nothing that I need to (or can) act on yet. All I have to do now is figure out what to do with all of the frequent flier points and Air Miles that I have accumulated! I can always use them on gift cards if nothing else jumps out at me.
Big buses in Piccadilly Circus, London
The next few posts will be retrospective. I’m going to be looking at what I planned to do this year and what I actually did. It’s always fun to look at lists so I’ll try to compile some highlights of the year. I will probably also come up with some advice and guidance for anybody who is planning this sort of thing for themselves. Maybe I’ll even begin to think about where I might travel in the years to come!
King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England
If you’re not too interested in revisiting this year, I think you’ll still find something of interest in this blog. As promised, I will eventually be sharing some photos and stories from pre-2014 trips. I’ll be liberated from writing in real time and chronological order, so you’ll never know what’s coming next! Even after all of this time, I still enjoy writing the blog and I hope that enthusiasm continues to show.
After being so excited about the food possibilities at the beginning of this trip, I didn’t really write much about food on this blog. I was a little distracted by all of the music and sights, especially in London.
Despite my initial musings about a “dhansak tour of England”, I did not have any more dhansak on the trip. In fact, I didn’t make it into another East Indian restaurant after my first night in Cambridge. However, I still enjoyed a lot of interesting food in London. Any lingering misconceptions about the sorry state of English dining ought to be permanently “consigned to the dustbin”, as they say.
Oddly-named establishment on Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia
Friday’s lunch was a delicious (and vibrant) chicken paella at a small place called Café Deco just two blocks from my hotel. I had big plans for a Lebanese dinner that night in Putney before the Los Pacaminos concert…but the restaurant was fully booked. With time running out, I had to settle for a take-out place called “Flavas Peri Peri” for dinner. It was extremely cheap (and plastic) by London standards and I didn’t have a great feeling about it. Luckily, the chicken sandwich was OK and the peri-peri sauce was better than expected.
On Saturday evening, I went to upscale Kensington for the concert at the Royal Albert Hall. I thought that there would be a lot of restaurants between the Kensington High Street tube station and the concert hall…but I didn’t see very many at all.
Christmas shopping chaos on London’s famed Carnaby Street
Once again running a little late, I decided to try a humble Chinese restaurant humbly called “Stick & Bowl”, vaguely remembering the name from an on-line review. The restaurant thrived on low comfort and high turnover but I still enjoyed my dinner of BBQ Pork with crispy noodles. In fact, the turnover was so fast that I was able to explore the neighbourhood a little before the concert.
After the concert, I was feeling very nibbly and was surprised to find relatively few late-night dining options near my hotel. Settling for a Tesco supermarket, I found a prepackaged but satisfying feta and butternut squash salad with lemon & mint dressing. If I had been in London longer, I definitely would have tried it again.
Christmas Bazaar on the High Street in St. John’s Wood
After visiting Abbey Road on Sunday, I decided to stay in the St. John’s Wood area for lunch, where I found a Japanese restaurant called “Mori” on the High Street. I opted for the culturally-confused and visually unappealing but actually quite good “Chicken Katsu Curry”. If Germany can come up with “Currywurst”, why not?
Chicken Katsu Curry over rice at Mori in St. John’s Wood
This left me with only one more meal in England. I had already tried fish & chips in Southend-on-Sea but it wasn’t in a traditional English pub. I decided that I wanted a nice pint of English cider and something tasty but filling in a warm atmosphere. It didn’t take long to make a decision: after walking by the neighbourhood-oriented Fitzrovia Tavern (see photo at top of this post) several times during my London stay, I finally went inside.
I grabbed a table in front of a fireplace and enjoyed an excellent “Hunter’s Chicken” and draught English cider. It was all very cozy and a great way to end my dining adventures in England…even if the pub turned out to be part of a chain and “Hunter’s Chicken” is probably not traditional pub fare.
The Fitzrovia Tavern at night, just after I ate there
As you have no doubt noticed, I wasn’t always able to take pictures of my food in London. Sometimes, the circumstances made it awkward to get out the camera…and sometimes I just forgot. It was also nice to leave the camera behind once in a while and just enjoy the moment.
This is my last post from England. I’ll be doing some year-end wrap-up posts next: stay tuned to find out the “best” parts of my travel year!
In between my tour of Parliament and the Jools Holland concert at the Royal Albert Hall, I had an entire afternoon free in London. As I had stumbled upon so many interesting things on a random walk two days earlier, I decided to do the same thing after leaving the Houses of Parliament.
Heading westward, I passed Westminster Abbey and found myself in the sprawling St. James Park. The crowds were immense, as the park was right between Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. There was a lot of almost-domesticated wildlife: these ducks, swans and squirrels had long ago figured out that they could live well by getting relatively close to humans.
One of my new friends poses for a picture in St. James Park, London.
I arrived at Buckingham Palace (see photo at top of this post) just after 12:00 noon. It is certainly a large building but I found the setting to be more impressive than the palace itself. This did not seem to deter many tourists: the roads were kept clear by police but it was otherwise extremely crowded in front of the palace.
Another Beatles site: the Bag o’ Nails (where Paul first met Linda), just west of Buckingham Palace on Lower Grosvenor Place
Craving some space, I decided to continue west and soon found myself in Belgravia. Along the way, I came across the “Bag o’ Nails” pub. I knew it was famous for something but couldn’t remember what. It turns out that this was a famous music venue in the 1960s and was also the pub where Paul McCartney first met his wife Linda in 1967. [As much of “A Hard Day’s Night” was filmed at the Scala Theatre on Tottenham Court Road in Fitzrovia, I probably also saw the place where George Harrison met his first wife in 1964!].
Typical streetscape in Belgravia, London
Belgravia is posh, with immaculate and imposing white buildings everywhere. I wasn’t surprised to see many embassies here. While it was nice to look at and there were certainly no crowds, I was beginning to get hungry and Belgravia didn’t seem to have any restaurants. I began walking northeast and, after passing the edge of Hyde Park, found myself in Mayfair.
Typical streetscape in Mayfair, London
Mayfair is another one of those names that I had heard before but didn’t have any real meaning to me. Now it does: Mayfair is the shopping district for those who are unconcerned about price. It’s beautiful, with ornate buildings and an unhurried air suggesting that everything is lovingly scrubbed down and polished on a daily basis.
Typical shopfront in Mayfair, London
I was getting quite hungry but I was wearing blue jeans and a scruffy sweater. Even if the Mayfair restaurants had appealed to me, I doubt that I would have been welcome in them. I reluctantly looked at the map and decided to head towards Oxford Street…it would be crowded, but it would be much easier to find an appropriate place for lunch.
I must not have been too discreet when I took this picture of the Mustard Café: the server is waving!
Oxford Street was impossibly busy but I found an unassuming café on a street running parallel to and north of Oxford. I paused to look at the menu and I was reassured by a patron that the food was good. For just under 5 pounds, I had a surprisingly good lasagna and a fruit juice at the Mustard Café.
As I had walked about 5 miles since leaving Parliament, I didn’t push myself too hard for the rest of the afternoon. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t completely exhausted by the time I made it to the Royal Albert Hall!
My last two posts (on the Royal Albert Hall concert and the Beatles pilgrimage) represented the last two musical highlights of my visit to London. However, I still have quite a bit of non-musical stuff to report.
First, however, I want to share a strange coincidence that I noticed after posting the Royal Albert Hall report. I had mentioned one concert in particular (the “Concert for George”) as being one of my favourites. This concert was held in the Royal Albert Hall on November 29, 2002, being exactly one year to the day after the death of George Harrison (November 29, 2001). Jools Holland was one of the performers at that tribute concert. When did I see Jools Holland perform at the Royal Albert Hall? November 29, 2014.
Gray’s Inn Hall – this hosted the first public performance of Shakespeare’s “A Comedy of Errors” in 1594.
On the afternoon of Friday, November 28, I went on a walking tour of “Legal London”: the purpose was to see some of the city’s legal landmarks, with a focus on the ancient “Inns of Court” that formed the basis of the legal profession for barristers.
In Canada, every lawyer is a “barrister and solicitor”, although in practice most lawyers choose to specialize in one or the other. In England, however, there is a much stronger separation between the two. A solicitor will rarely, if ever, appear in court. If anything becomes contentious, a solicitor generally refers the matter to a barrister.
Suppliers of legal robes and wigs since 1689!
Each barrister is associated with one of the four Inns of Court that are located within easy walking distance of each other just west of downtown London. Traditions die hard here: these are the same medieval Inns of Court that Charles Dickens wrote of in the 19th century. We saw a legal robe and wigmaker that has been in business continuously since the 17th century.
One of the buildings at Gray’s Inn. Charles Dickens worked as a clerk in the room directly above the door.
Dickens didn’t think much of lawyers (nor did he think much of my hometown of Kingston, Ontario, incidentally) but at least he was writing from personal experience. He clerked at Gray’s Inn for a short time before exploring other career options. The Inns are relatively quiet urban refuges from the hustle and bustle of modern London, similar in many ways to the colleges of Cambridge University.
The tour ended in the Fleet Street area at the Royal Courts of Justice. Fleet Street has long been associated with British journalism but in reality most of the media has long since relocated to less expensive real estate.
The Royal Courts of Justice in downtown London
After the Legal London tour, I didn’t have much time to spare before I needed to head for the distant neighbourhood of Putney for the Los Pacaminos concert. I allowed plenty of transit time, even though I found a bus route that went from my hotel right to Putney. The scheduled travel time was an hour, but the incredibly congested city meant that my bus (and every other) was also about an hour late. I still arrived in time but had to settle for a rather unhealthy fast-food meal before the concert.
Transit gridlock – a long line of London buses remains stationary…on a green light.
Urban gridlock is particularly bad here. Even a steep congestion tax, which costs you $18.00 every time you want to drive into the city, has done little to alleviate the traffic woes. There is a comprehensive underground (“the Tube”) system, but it too is prone to severe delays: my relatively short underground trip the following night to Kensington also took at least about half-an-hour longer than it should have.
Looking back, transportation was about the only negative experience I had in London. The buses and trains themselves, however, were relatively well-kept and I certainly never had any safety concerns.
After the overwhelming Saturday night concert at the Royal Albert Hall, there was only one day left on my musical tour. I wanted to take advantage of every moment but I had no further concert tickets and no strong desire to see a musical matinee. I also had to get up at 4:45 a.m. the following morning to catch my flight back to Canada.
I decided to go on a special guided tour. Not just any tour, mind you, but a tour that would finally introduce me to the London of my first musical heroes: The Beatles.
Millions of words have been written about the Beatles and I don’t think I need to convince anyone that their songs will one day be considered the “classical music” of the 20th century. No matter how much they have been deified, the fact remains that they created all of that music in this very real city and lived a very real life here. It was time to finally see it for myself.
Trident Studios – this is where “Hey Jude” was recorded in the summer of 1968
After walking past Paul McCartney’s offices, we saw Trident Studios in a narrow laneway. The Beatles rarely recorded here, but they did happen to record “Hey Jude” here…and that’s what they were doing on the day I was born. These particular studios were beyond nondescript and yet this was where one of the most popular songs ever was recorded.
Nearby was the former site of the Indica Gallery – famous for being the place where John Lennon first met Yoko Ono. Our guide was careful to point out that Ono didn’t break up the Beatles; rather than the “cause”, he thought she was a “symptom” and the breakup would have happened eventually anyway.
The Indica Gallery today, in a quiet London courtyard
The second most important site for me on this tour was 3 Savile Row – the former headquarters of Apple Records and the site of their last ever public performance. This is the building you see throughout the movie “Let It Be”; the famous rooftop concert took place right here! There was also a recording studio in the basement. Looking at the neighbourhood today, it still is very “proper and dignified”…it’s no wonder the Beatles were not welcomed with open arms by the other businesses on the street. Today, 3 Savile Row is the location of an “Abercrombie Kids” store.
3 Savile Row – former headquarters of the Beatles’ business empire
We saw some other minor sites but the best was saved for last. We had to take the Tube to St. John’s Wood and walk for about 10 minutes. Even though it was a typical semi-suburban environment, there were tourists everywhere…many of them endangering life and limb on the busy street. This was Abbey Road.
Abbey Road is the location of EMI Studios (as it was then called), where the Beatles recorded almost all of their music. The site is now called Abbey Road Studios and is still used as a commercial studio, so it is not open to the general public. That doesn’t stop hundreds (thousands?) of people visiting it every day to pay their respects. It does feel kind of magical here.
Abbey Road Studios, St. John’s Wood, London
Perhaps even more alluring is the fact that this is also the very place where the iconic Abbey Road album cover photograph was taken. Back in 1969, the street was briefly closed and the photo of the Beatles was taken from a stepladder in the middle of the road. That’s why fans continue to endanger their lives by trying to recreate the exact photo. It’s also one of the few “real” places portrayed on a Beatles album cover.
I didn’t try to take a picture from the very same spot. But I took some photos of the pedestrian crossing (it’s still there) and even had another person take a photo of me walking across just like the Beatles did all those years ago. That’s the photo you see at the top of this post, with Abbey Road Studios in the background.
The end of the Abbey Road crossing…and the end of my musical pilgrimage!
Along with “Revolver” and “With The Beatles“, “Abbey Road” is one of my three favourite Beatles albums. It certainly has the best production and was the last original album they recorded together (although the very uneven “Let It Be” album was released later). It was a fitting finale to an astonishing career.
For me, going to Abbey Road also represented a kind of closure for my year of travel. I had come to the end of the long and winding road and there was nowhere else I needed to go. It was time to go home.
Today’s post is an extended one with lots of musical links: given the event, I didn’t want to break this up into smaller blogs!
When I started planning this trip in June, even before booking the flights, I ensured that I had great tickets to two shows. One was the Paul Carrack concert. The other was a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Within a few days, I also had a ticket for Los Pacaminos and I added “The Commitments” a couple of months later.
Why the Royal Albert Hall? When I think of opulent concert halls, it’s the first one that comes to mind. However, it has also been the site for a host of legendary concerts. One of my favourite concert videos is “A Concert for George” – the all-star tribute to the late George Harrison. In that one concert alone, there were performances by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Jeff (ELO) Lynne, Tom Petty, Billy Preston and the entire Monty Python gang (among others). In fact, Eric Clapton has played there almost 200 times.
The South Kensington outdoor skating rink, just a short walk from the Royal Albert Hall
Not only is it stunningly beautiful inside and out, it also manages to hold more than 5,200 people in comfort. I was determined to be one of those people, for one night at least!
While travelling alone certainly has its drawbacks, it paid one unexpected dividend on this trip: it is sometimes possible to snap up single tickets very close to the stage that have been left “stranded” by groups buying blocks of tickets. That’s what happened with the Paul Carrack concert (where I was in the 9th row, in the exact centre of the hall) and that’s what happened here…where I managed to get a lone seat in the 13th row, right in the centre, for a Saturday night concert less than a month before Christmas. Even better, it was for a concert that I really wanted to see!
Jools Holland is known in North America as a former member of Squeeze…in fact, when he left, he was replaced by Paul Carrack. But in the U.K., he is a legendary radio and television host (“Later…with Jools Holland”) and bandleader of the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. Simply put, they are the best known “big band” in the U.K. and in many other countries as well. They have also recorded with just about everybody with an interest in this kind of music. On one CD alone, the collaborators included George Harrison, Van Morrison, Sting, Paul Weller, Dr. John, Joe Strummer (The Clash), Steve Winwood, Mick Hucknall (Simply Red), Paul Carrack, Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) and Eric Clapton.
View from my seat, looking at the area just to the right of (and behind) the Royal Albert Hall stage
Imagine an amped-up modern-day cross between Cab Calloway, Glenn Miller, Ray Charles and the Blues Brothers…that might come close to capturing the Jools Holland Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. The sound is not subtle: there are 5 saxophones, 3 trumpets and 3 trombones, in addition to the various other singers and instruments you might expect to find in a big band. And while they do play standards like “Tuxedo Junction”, they don’t restrict themselves to traditional big band material: here is a live version of Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” with Melanie C(!), a former Spice Girl, while this is a video for Jerry Lee Lewis’ “It’ll Be Me” recorded with Tom Jones.
I arrived well in advance of the concert, as I wanted plenty of time to look around and experience the venue beforehand. It is located in a posh area (Kensington) of London; as you can see from the photo at the top of this post, it is quite an imposing sight. I had to negotiate a series of hidden stairwells and oddly-shaped corridors to get to my seat but it is even more impressive inside. There are arches, rich colours, suites and ornate accents everywhere…as if one has just woken up in the 19th century.
Looking towards the back of the Royal Albert Hall
After a forgettable opening act, Jools Holland and his R&B Orchestra arrived with a bang. The horn section was not going to be silenced on this evening and the sell-out crowd was very happy with that. I should also mention that Jools Holland has the best left-handed piano technique I’ve ever seen. It would have been fine if they played instrumentals all night.
Nonetheless, the vocalists in the orchestra are exceptional. The current roster includes Louise Marshall and Ruby Turner. Ruby Turner is an established singer in her own right; I even picked up her 45 (7″ vinyl single) of “I’d Rather Go Blind” this summer in the Netherlands (here’s a live version of the same song). But Marshall is a vocal powerhouse too…you should expect to see much more of her in the future (here’s a Louise Marshall/Jools Holland recording of a song that she also performed live tonight). My wife and I saw Aretha Franklin perform a few years ago and (sacrilege alert!) her performance didn’t even come close to Marshall or Turner.
View of the Royal Albert Hall stage just before the show (from my seat, no zoom lens)
Despite having that kind of vocal talent in his orchestra, a big feature of Jools Holland concerts is having some great guest stars. On this night, there were two special guests. The first was Joss Stone; you may recognize her name, as her first couple of releases received quite a bit of attention. This live performance with Melissa Etheridge is fairly typical (although Melissa Etheridge clearly wins this battle!); here are other ones with Donna Summer and Jeff Beck. Her performances on this night with Jools Holland were similar.
The next guest was bit of a surprise. Marc Almond was the singer with Soft Cell, a synth-pop duo from the early 1980s who had a massive international hit with “Tainted Love” as well as another big hit with “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”. He has had a successful U.K. solo career since then.
Almond started his set with “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”, followed by a dramatic interpretation of a Jacques Brel song. Would he sing “Tainted Love”, even though it was also a cover version (recorded originally by Gloria Jones in the early 1960s)? Personally, I wasn’t too keen on the original Jones vocal, but the musical backing was solid. Conversely, the Soft Cell vocal was memorable but the synth backing sounds dated now. Luckily for us, he chose to sing “Tainted Love”…and he did it in front of a powerful big-band arrangement!
They didn’t cut corners: this is the back side of the Royal Albert Hall
This was definitely one of the highlights of the night. The audience was “gobsmacked”, as they say, and the orchestra really delivered with staccato stabs of horns. This was how the song was meant to be performed and everybody nailed it.
Yet there were even more highlights. One of the best encore songs was a song called “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)”. I knew a version of it by British ska legends The Specials but it turns out that it’s a very old song recorded at one point by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians! Again, this was a brilliantly performed song and one that perfectly suited both the moment and the evening. Here’s a recent studio version by Jools Holland.
The Orchestra played for a little more than 2 hours…but it went by so fast. It was also exhausting, with so much energy in the music. While I caught a bus just outside the Royal Albert Hall, I had enough adrenaline to walk back to my hotel from Leicester Square without even noticing the distance.
Almost back at my hotel…corner of Tottenham Court Road and Chenies Street in Fitzrovia, London
With Los Pacaminos last night and the Jools Holland R&B Orchestra tonight, I have been rather forcefully reminded of the sheer power of live music played by committed musicians. It even makes me think back to the fun I had playing live in a band at law school, where we bludgeoned our way through grunge (hey, it was the 1990s!) covers of songs by the likes of Abba (“Knowing Me, Knowing You”) and Duran Duran (“Hungry Like The Wolf”, although we turned it into “Hungry Like Beowulf”).
To be honest, I would have been happy just going on a tour of the Royal Albert Hall. To experience a concert like this in such a wonderful venue was icing on the cake. It was also a great way to end my year of travel, except for one thing: my year of travel wasn’t quite over.
I still had one more full day in London…but I knew that there was no way I could find a concert to top what I had experienced over the past couple of days. Stay tuned to find out how I spent the final day of this musical adventure!
