Our fine city’s music history
Norwich is undoubtedly a musical city. All it takes is a walk in the centre on a sunny day to know that. You’ll hear music floating into your ears every hundred yards or so walking around the market and the streets going off it; Pottergate, London Street and Gentleman’s walk are all full of buskers treating you to the sounds of their own musical fayre. Indeed, there are so many musical happenings on a Sunday in the city that a pair I met at a gig once said they frequently like to spend the day gig-hopping between pubs.
Our musical roots run deep. A wealth of talent has passed through over the years, a myriad of wonderful characters are associated with the scene, and there are wild stories and antics attached to the city’s venues. We’ll kick off with the latter; the venues of Norwich’s past saw an awful lot coming through their doors.
The Orford Cellar
The Orford Cellar was a 300 cap (sans health and safety regs and even then at a push, which seemingly it always was) venue which boasted a basement room as well as bars on other floors. In the 50s it was a swinging Jazz and Skiffle venue. Skiffle involved using cheap instruments and sometimes even household objects such as spoons, washboards and bins, the likes of which you only really see in American Country and Folk nowadays.
An article in The American Library paints a great picture of Orford Cellar at its peak in the 60s. It was so humid in the dingy, booming basement that beer bottle labels sweated off in your hand. Before the days of the indoor smoking ban, you’d be watching musicians play from within a haze of smoke, and if my trawling through Facebook comments is to be believed, quite a few remember trying their first cigarette of a slightly different kind there, too. In ‘67 Jimi Hendrix performed at the Cellar, with lines stretching all the way down the street. This was mere months before his performance at Monterey festival broke him in the US, and Jimi became a household name across the globe. Orford Cellar isn’t open any more, but you can still see the door that would’ve led to the basement, marked by a blue plaque on Red Lion Street.
Despite that righteous bit of Rock n’ Roll history associated with the city, Norwich seems to have been somewhat slow to take to the genre and everything that came with it. In ‘The Beat Goes On’ by Colin Miller, one particular reviewer for Eastern Evening News, John Mitchell, is quoted multiple times positively slamming it with every fibre of his being.
Rock n’ Roll was being deemed either the cause or a sign of the disintegration of social codes and moral integrity of the young by many in Norfolk. The Norfolk youth though had ready access to an influx of American officers who favoured it, and radio stations across the channel that were playing it. In short, along with those things, as well as an increase in spending money with the prosperity that followed post-Second World War, the stiffs were fighting a losing battle.
Samson and Hercules
Then betwixt this conflict between the teens and the older generation comes Norman Guest. Guest was a prominent Norwich promoter who was deemed by most to be responsible for Orford’s Cellar’s fame and notoriety after starting a popular Jazz club there in the 50s. He was also entertainment manager of The Samson and Hercules around the same time and introduced ‘discotheques’ to the city.
The youth wanted to jive. The adults didn’t want the alcohol and teen pregnancy they were sure would come from that. Guest introduced a discotheque to The Samson and Hercules and he called it ‘Off The Records’. From 8-10.30pm on Monday evenings, teens between 14 and 20 were treated to a non-stop programme of music from the chart’s top 100 list. To satisfy parents, alcohol was strictly prohibited, only soft drinks were served…but even without the alcohol, a night spent at Off The Records seems like a pretty wild affair to me…
“…for long periods the floor was a writhing sea of young humanity. ‘Sea’ is the right word because as the arms came up in the jive movement, they looked like swimmers“
Maybe you were tired, and wanted to stop dancing…or maybe it was that you wanted to put some distance between yourself and the flailing limbs. Either way, you could do that by treating yourself to a nice Polio vaccine, which were also being offered at the club!
The Mischief Tavern
It would be remiss of me writing a blog about the Norwich music scene, not to mention Albert Cooper and Antoinette Hannant. Albert was a friend of Antoinette and a regular player at her thumping live music nights at the Jolly Butchers, which she was Landlady of. He talks reverentially of her and her talents in Albert Cooper: reflecting on his life & music, and after watching her tour-de-force performances I can certainly see why, but we’ll get to her in a second. After 12 years performing at the Butchers, Albert decided to expand and make his own Folk, Blues and Jazz club in a small room of what is now The Mischief Tavern. ‘The Jacquard Club’ saw many famous acts pass through in their early days; Paul Simon, Ronnie Scott and Judy Collins, to name but a few.
Albert wasn’t just a facilitator of new talent. He was a great entertainer in his own right; ‘an extremely engaging raconteur’, who could be seen walking the streets of Norwich in his characteristic black hat, or performing at The Rumsey Wells and various other venues in the city all the way into his eighties. Despite all this notoriety, he comes across as down-to-earth and humble. There are numerous documentaries by a few different people on Youtube about Albert Cooper, from which you get a small idea of the kind of man he was.
The Jolly Butchers
And now, the time has come for me to introduce you to the star of the show, as Albert referred to her, drum-roll please, the magnificent Antoinette Hannant. Nobody knew her as that though. Everybody referred to her as Black Anna because of the customary black clothes and earrings she would always be sporting. Anna hosted legendary, rowdy Jazz and Skiffle nights at the Jolly Butchers for over 30 years, until her death in ‘76. Legendary nights to match a legendary personality. Before she even opens her mouth, she cuts a beguiling, imposing figure in her black dress with sharp features and black hair pulled tight back from her face. Then she does open her mouth, and you’re confronted with a woman who would be called ballsy by today’s standards. Anna was born in 1905. Here are a few of my favourite quotes from her.
(Anna, on English Jazz Musicians)
…They’re too perfect, no feelin’…they play correct and they don’t miss a note, you know, and they’re dead..dead from the neck up
(On people’s puzzlement at her black clothes)
…I’ve had people ask me what order I belong to. A bad one, I tell them!
(On cleaning the house)
…Housework – which I hate! Oh I loathe. Oh I’m no domestic woman
(On English Musicians, again)
…Our musicians just play, they don’t participate with the audience, which is my target. Bring them in! They love it!
I can certainly believe they did love it. Watching her perform is a joy. Whilst she was dubbed by American officers as ‘The English Sophie Tucker’, a famous Jazz Singer of the fifties, I would say Anna’s vocal talents and ability to work a crowd were entirely her own.
I could go on all day about Black Anna, I could’ve written a blog based solely on her, but I won’t, instead I’ll encourage you to look her up and watch her growl out a number for yourself. And if you don’t fancy that, head into the city and find what musical delights await you there instead.