Not everyone enjoys music in pubs. “The one thing that spoils a pub is music,” said The Telegraph’s Christopher Howse when he was asked about the notion of the perfect pub recently. “It means that you can’t hear what the other person is saying.”
I wouldn’t dream of arguing with a man so steeped in pub culture – and, actually, I agree with him that piped-in music is often appalling. I was in a pub in Soho recently where the music was so bad – the sort of insistent techno you used to hear in “It’s A Scream” student pubs back in the 1990s – that I’m sure it made the beer taste worse.
But live music is different. During research for my guide to the 500 Best Pubs in England, I wandered into the Albert Inn in Totnes as a band was playing. Well, I attempted to wander in. It was so busy, so packed with clearly delighted customers, that I had to order through a hatch and take my pint into a room at the back through a side door. “That guy on the harmonica is fantastic,” one of the barmen remarked to no-one in particular, and it was impossible not to agree.
When the music is good like this, it gives a place a special atmosphere, a sense that the normal rules – such as they apply in pubs – have been temporarily jettisoned. Perhaps this is why live music is making a minor comeback – or perhaps it’s because publicans have to try everything to survive at the moment.
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Either way, it’s a welcome development. Not too long ago, music in pubs was more common than not, and many of the UK’s most famous musicians cut their teeth in various back rooms and upstairs suites around the country. The Rolling Stones, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, PJ Harvey, Iron Maiden, David Bowie, the pub rockers of the early 1970s; all of them played in pubs when they were starting out.
Ozzy Ozbourne’s recent death, too, is a reminder that Black Sabbath may never have existed were it not for the Crown pub in Birmingham, currently closed thanks to a row over redevelopment. It was there that Sabbath first played live, under their previous name Earth, having convinced promoter Jim Simpson to manage them and let them play regularly during his blues sessions in a room above the main bar. “Right from the beginning, audiences loved them,” Simpson told me when I spoke to him about Sabbath and music in pubs last year. “They really resonated with people.”
Currently closed, The Crown in Birmingham has been called the ‘birthplace of heavy metal’ – alamy
That’s the nature of live music in a small space; it’s not like going to an arena gig. There’s a genuine connection, even when you haven’t gone especially to hear music. I wandered in on a variety of musical acts researching my guide. A covers band at a packed-out, exuberant Boat and Horses in Newcastle-under-Lyme on a bank holiday Sunday; Americana at the Flowerpot in Derby on a Monday evening; a folk session at the Cumberland Arms in Newcastle, into which I blundered, withdrew and then enjoyed from an adjacent room; and traditional Irish music, hypnotic in its repetition, at the Blythe Hill Tavern in South London.
Best of all, perhaps, was the almost medieval sound of Northumberland pipes at Ye Olde Elm Tree in Durham, an instrument I’d never heard played live before but will now seek out, particularly when I’m in that part of the world.
Traditional Irish music sessions are a common occurrence at the Blythe Hill Tavern in London – The Blythe Hill Tavern Facebook
Folk music, of course, has a long history in pubs: Bert Lloyd, musician and collector of folk songs, recorded singers at the Eel’s Foot pub in Eastbridge, Suffolk, in the years before the Second World War, but a tradition of communal singing and playing goes back long before then.
But pubs aren’t just for fiddles and acoustic guitars. How about metal? When I stepped into The Victoria Inn, a simply-decorated venue close to Derby station, I found it populated largely by rock fans – long hair, leather, denim waistcoats with band patches sewn on – waiting to see that night’s act, Seven Sisters, described in their marketing as “London’s premier twin-led Heavy Metal four-piece”. Not everyone’s cup of tea, perhaps, but it was nice to get a brief window into that world – and where else would it happen but at a pub?
Pub expert Will Hawkes enjoying a pint in the Blythe Hill Tavern – Clara Molden for The Daily Telegraph
Back at The Albert, meanwhile, I was collared by one of the locals after the band had finished. Discovering that I was seeking out the best pubs in England, he produced a handwritten list of his local favourites – plus (unbidden) a link to his own musical efforts, which included a selection of songs about pubs. While the songs are not likely to give Ed Sheeran too many sleepless nights, they are another reminder that pubs and live music are a natural partnership – and hopefully always will be.
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