Not everyone enjoys music in pubs. \u201cThe one thing that spoils a pub is music,\u201d said The Telegraph\u2019s Christopher Howse when he was asked about the notion of the perfect pub recently<\/a>. \u201cIt means that you can\u2019t hear what the other person is saying.\u201d<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t dream of arguing with a man so steeped in pub culture \u2013 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 \u2013 the sort of insistent techno you used to hear in \u201cIt\u2019s A Scream\u201d student pubs back in the 1990s \u2013 that I\u2019m sure it made the beer taste worse.<\/p>\n But live music is different. During research for my guide to the 500 Best Pubs in England<\/a>, I wandered into the Albert Inn in Totnes<\/a> 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. \u201cThat guy on the harmonica is fantastic,\u201d one of the barmen remarked to no-one in particular, and it was impossible not to agree.<\/p>\n When the music is good like this, it gives a place a special atmosphere, a sense that the normal rules \u2013 such as they apply in pubs \u2013 have been temporarily jettisoned. Perhaps this is why live music is making a minor comeback \u2013 or perhaps it\u2019s because publicans have to try everything to survive at the moment.<\/p>\n b’<\/p>\n ‘<\/p>\n Either way, it\u2019s a welcome development. Not too long ago, music in pubs was more common than not, and many of the UK\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Ozzy Ozbourne\u2019s recent death, too, is a reminder that Black Sabbath may never have existed were it not for the Crown pub in Birmingham<\/a>, 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. \u201cRight from the beginning, audiences loved them,\u201d Simpson told me when I spoke to him about Sabbath and music in pubs last year. \u201cThey really resonated with people.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently closed, The Crown in Birmingham has been called the \u2018birthplace of heavy metal\u2019 – alamy<\/p>\n That\u2019s the nature of live music in a small space; it\u2019s not like going to an arena gig. There\u2019s a genuine connection, even when you haven\u2019t 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<\/a> on a bank holiday Sunday; Americana at the Flowerpot in Derby<\/a> on a Monday evening; a folk session at the Cumberland Arms in Newcastle<\/a>, 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Best of all, perhaps, was the almost medieval sound of Northumberland pipes at Ye Olde Elm Tree in Durham<\/a>, an instrument I\u2019d never heard played live before but will now seek out, particularly when I\u2019m in that part of the world.<\/p>\n Traditional Irish music sessions are a common occurrence at the Blythe Hill Tavern in London – The Blythe Hill Tavern Facebook<\/p>\n Folk music, of course, has a long history in pubs: Bert Lloyd, musician and collector of folk songs, recorded singers at the Eel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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