Pub and band of sultans of swing

[binone]

I

[Love Expresso]

Thank you, interesting to hear it I remember there was a transcript of this interview on Tomas Molins Knopfler.net which was one of the first things I was printing after I got internet in 1999... But he doesn't name the pub nor the band I'm afraid. He says that he saw a Dixieland Jazzband ("not my kind of music at all") in a deserted pub, a semi-deserted pub in Deptford where they were living at that time, and calls the band "down-at-heel" and they were just playing these dixie standards "the way they always do".

I really get goosebumps everytime Mark talks about the scenery that made him write this "masterpiece of social observation".

I was listening to the Milano 2013 version this afternoon and was thinking "wow, what a song, what a sound, what a rendition.

LE

[Love Expresso]

Love so much how he impersonates Bob and gives the famous "diary/inquiry" quotation. "When you are a songwriter, you know, there is only so much rhyhimg. Love, glove, above..."

LE

[JF]

Dixieland Jazzband ("not my kind of music at all")

it was maybe not his kind of music at the time, but I think later it became part of this musical background

I find that quality shoe (live with the sax) and daddy's gone to knoxwille (especially live with Matt's piano solo, and Danny's kind of wahsboard drumming) have a dixie flavour

After The Beanstalk has also some dixie reminiscence IMHO

[binone]

a pitty it was not the names. But a nice interview.

I have also disc 2, having a lot of answers, but no interviewer.

[twm]

If you really want to find out the name of the band and/or the name of the pub, you have a number of options:

1) find out the names of local newspapers in Deptford and trawl through back issues from the period in question until you come across some thing relevant - an advert, a news report or whatever. I'm suprisaed nobody has attempted it so far

2) contact a local newspaper with Mark's quote and try to encourage a local reporter to find ou,t with a view to him or her writing a story about it

3) write a letter to the newspaper and hope that they print it. Explain the background and ask if any of the newspaper readers were in such a jazz band or if anyone attended such local pub gigs. Give the address that Mark lived in around that time.

The South London Press might be able to help: http://www.southlondonpress.co.uk/listings.cfm

If you doubt it can be done, read on. I had a particular query in mind, identified a local newspaper and contacted it. The reporter contacted me for a "sort-of" interview and ran this story:

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2012/06/08/life/doc4fd28761772f5937517878.txt?viewmode=fullstory

The reporter then gathered the responses and passed the details of the respondents to me. I contacted them and got some useful information for a project on which I was working at that time. After I had written it up, I sent a copy of what I'd written to each of those who had helped me.

As an aside, Dylan,  in the middle of a year-long set of recording sessions for what became his FREEWHEELIN' album, did three sessions with some backing musicians. It is likely that it was Dylan's manager who suggested a dixieland backing, though the musicians were selected by his record producer, John Hammond, who had a background in jazz. Anyway, the sound they got was more early Sun record label than dixieland. I have sometimes thought of that when listening to Sultans in concert - from the inspiration of a dixieland jazzband to an early rock-n'roll sound. Funny how these things come round again.

[Love Expresso]

Googling around a little bit, I found these two entries, both from www.songfacts.com, not very reliable but maybe interesting:

The setting is a jazz pub in Greenwich London.
Meantime, and south of the river are the clues.
Before they hit the big time , they shared a council flat in Deptford , which is about a mile from Greenwich park .The pub is either the Mitre in Greenwich , or the Prince of Orange in Rotherhithe
The story goes that close to where they lived in Farrer House on the Crossfield council estate ."Love over gold" was scrawled on a wall.The rest is history.

Possibly but not definitely the Half Moon in Herne Hill, south London which had a big reputation for jass in the 70s - I used to go there. It's very definitely "way on down south, London town" - and the park "It's raining in" would be Brockwell Park just next door. A lot of the Knopflers' songs have strong south London overtones, including "SIngle Handed Sailor" which refers to the Cutty Sark clipper in Greenwich, and the Gypsy Moth which used to be moored next to it.

One of them seemed to remember that he read somewhere about Mark requesting the Sultans if they can play "Creole Love Song"  ... is it the same song as this one?

 

Always wondered about the meaning of "and the sultans played creole blue"
 
LE

[twm]

Well, well, well! I never expected to be writing about Duke Ellington here. I saw the Duke Ellington Orchestra twice in my youth. Some band members were musicians of note in their own right - Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Paul Gonsalves, Russel Procope ... the list just goies on ... and with the Duke himself on piano. I loved it.

"Creole Love Call" is a good suggestion. In fact, the most famous recording was by Adelaide Hall with Duke Ellington and it was a big hit. Adelaide Hall had a wide range (jazz, blues, show tunes etc) but was a noted scat singer and her vocal on "Creole Love Song" was wordless - almost imitating a muted trumpet at times (she referred to it as her "growling").

"Sweet Adelaide" was 4-part BBC radio programe in which she was interviewed about her life and work and which I recorded on cassette. Thanks for the excuse to play it again, which I am doing as I type this. I've shortened this extract a bit but here's what Adelaide Hall said about that song :

"I was closing the first half of the bill and Duke was opening the second half. ... I was standing in the wings while he was playing all these beautiful songs and I heard this melody of "Creole Love Call" that I hadn't heard before and I decided to hum with it off-stage but he was catching it in the amplifier and I didn't know. So he came over to the side of the wing and he said, 'Oh, Adie, that's exactly what I've been looking for'. He said, 'I hope you can remember it'  ....  He had the boys to come in again on it and I started this counter melody and it's stuck with me".   

As the BBC interviewer said, That recording of "Creole Love Call" created a sensation, not least because of Adelaide's highly distinctive solo. That's the way they made hits in 1927.

Adelaide Hall came to Britain in the late 1930s and stayed until she died, about 20 years ago.

[dmg]

After singing "creole blues" he sometimes goes on to say "creole love call" just prior to entering into the middle solo.  Only sometimes though!

[Dutchessy]

This seems to be correct, according to the Brithish grove Episode 4 

[Pottel]

Well, well, well! I never expected to be writing about Duke Ellington here. I saw the Duke Ellington Orchestra twice in my youth. Some band members were musicians of note in their own right - Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Paul Gonsalves, Russel Procope ... the list just goies on ... and with the Duke himself on piano. I loved it.

"Creole Love Call" is a good suggestion. In fact, the most famous recording was by Adelaide Hall with Duke Ellington and it was a big hit. Adelaide Hall had a wide range (jazz, blues, show tunes etc) but was a noted scat singer and her vocal on "Creole Love Song" was wordless - almost imitating a muted trumpet at times (she referred to it as her "growling").

"Sweet Adelaide" was 4-part BBC radio programe in which she was interviewed about her life and work and which I recorded on cassette. Thanks for the excuse to play it again, which I am doing as I type this. I've shortened this extract a bit but here's what Adelaide Hall said about that song :

"I was closing the first half of the bill and Duke was opening the second half. ... I was standing in the wings while he was playing all these beautiful songs and I heard this melody of "Creole Love Call" that I hadn't heard before and I decided to hum with it off-stage but he was catching it in the amplifier and I didn't know. So he came over to the side of the wing and he said, 'Oh, Adie, that's exactly what I've been looking for'. He said, 'I hope you can remember it'  ....  He had the boys to come in again on it and I started this counter melody and it's stuck with me".   

As the BBC interviewer said, That recording of "Creole Love Call" created a sensation, not least because of Adelaide's highly distinctive solo. That's the way they made hits in 1927.

Adelaide Hall came to Britain in the late 1930s and stayed until she died, about 20 years ago.

aaah, always grreat to have mr. TWM on here....so much info!

[Pottel]

just listening to the 1980 dec. Newcastle show, and there mark tells "the story" after playing Sultans, and talks about going to the pub with his brother drinking beer and playing pool.
so maybe someone could carefully ask David if he remembers the actual pub?

[hunter]

just listening to the 1980 dec. Newcastle show, and there mark tells "the story" after playing Sultans, and talks about going to the pub with his brother drinking beer and playing pool.
so maybe someone could carefully ask David if he remembers the actual pub?

I found the Newcastle show on YouTube. First time I've heard it. The Les Boys story though! Man, Mark talks for a long time there. And the disco music - just hilarious.

[Pottel]

just listening to the 1980 dec. Newcastle show, and there mark tells "the story" after playing Sultans, and talks about going to the pub with his brother drinking beer and playing pool.
so maybe someone could carefully ask David if he remembers the actual pub?

the audio quality is better (far!)on the boston show, a bit earlier that same year, listen to that one. but the sultans bit he only tells in newcastle, i believe...


I found the Newcastle show on YouTube. First time I've heard it. The Les Boys story though! Man, Mark talks for a long time there. And the disco music - just hilarious.

[hunter]

just listening to the 1980 dec. Newcastle show, and there mark tells "the story" after playing Sultans, and talks about going to the pub with his brother drinking beer and playing pool.
so maybe someone could carefully ask David if he remembers the actual pub?

the audio quality is better (far!)on the boston show, a bit earlier that same year, listen to that one. but the sultans bit he only tells in newcastle, i believe...


I found the Newcastle show on YouTube. First time I've heard it. The Les Boys story though! Man, Mark talks for a long time there. And the disco music - just hilarious.

Do they play Les Boys with the disco intro and the whole thing?