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bristol ballrooms and coffee bars of the 1960's

hi, does anybody have more information including pictures of ""The glen Ballroom,(including the clubhouse) which was where the new Bupa Hospital on the downs is now. the Bristol Locarno Ballroom off the centre and the top rank ballroom, which was nearby to the odeon cinema in broadmead thats if its still there. and also the coffee bars and cellar bars of that era. would be grateful for any information including pictures.

thanks

Re: bristol ballrooms and coffee bars of the 1960's

Bristol . . . entertainments capital of the South West, and one of the entertainments attractions of Europe. That was the talk of the town when Mecca moved into Bristol, splashed out a fortune and began building the New Entertainments Centre in Frogmore Street, towering over the ancient Hatchet Inn and the Georgian and Regency streets nearby.


The New Entertainments Centre wasn't just big, it was enormous and it was what 60s leisure and fun-time were all about, Mecca promised. Here, slap bang in the middle of Bristol, the company was creating the largest entertainment centre in the whole of Europe. A dozen licensed bars, an ice rink, bowling lanes, a casino, a night club, a grand cinema, asumptuous ballroom and, naturally, a multi-storey car park to accommodate all those Zephyr Zodiacs, Anglias, Westminsters, Minis, Victors and Imps etc which would come pouring into town bringing the 5,000 or so customers who would flock to the centre every day.

London might have its famous West End. Bristol had its Frogmore Street palace of fun and the opening night of the biggest attraction of all, the Locarno Ballroom, on May 19th was the Night To Crown All First Nights, the Post proudly announced. Sparkling lights, plastic palm trees in shadily-lit bars, a revolving stage, dolly birds in fishnet tights and grass skirts . . . this was glamour a la mid-60s and Bristol loved it.

Everyone wanted to be there'on Night One but the guest list was limited. It was, the Post reported the next day: "... a date to remember last night for 800 Bristol and West Country VIPs who saw the splendour of Mecca's new Locarno ballroom.

"At the New Bristol Centre were the mayors, the business chiefs and the top socialites of the city and neighbouring counties. "Mecca, having spent £2 million on building, spared no expense in making the opening of the ballroom one of the gayest nights of the year. "There was a gift of a commemmorative Churchill crown for every guest, including the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, Aid. and Mrs Tom Martin. "Aid. Wally Jenkins, chairman of the Public Works and Planning Committee, gave the ballroom Bristol's blessing in declaring the premises well and truly launched.

"When Mecca selected Bristol for their centre, they did not just do it with a pin, he said. "They knew that Bristol deserved and appreciated the best. Mecca had shown a swashbuckling and adventurous enterprise in providing it and Bristol would support it. "To tell the guests last night all they wanted to know about Mecca, there were half a dozen hostesses, including winners of the West Country heat of the Miss Great Britain contest—in plumes, fishnet tights and bikinis. "There were girls in grass skirts who brought on the pineapple confection for the buffet supper. "There was Sidney Jones and his Orchestra playing conventional ballroom music and Wilf Ray and his Orchestra— including an ex-member of the Cadillacs, one of the West's top beat groups—playing superbly competent swing.

"There was glitter and glow of myriad lights. "There was an atmosphere of rich opulent intimacy warming the place in a way not to be expected in a ballroom capable of holding more than 2,000 people. "Guests were served drinks in the South Seas climate of the Bali Hai bar, in the swish Le Club bar and by check-waist- coated, bowler hatted barmen in the Victorian bar".

That was just for starters. In mid- November the Lord Mayor was there to open the magnificent £100,000 ABC Cinema at the centre. A week later Miss World, a beautiful Indian medical student, Reita Faria, came to town to open the Craywood Club, the new casino. Bristol—Sixties entertainment capital of the West.

View image copy & paste link
http://www.bristolhistory.com/?pageid=46141

Re: bristol ballrooms and coffee bars of the 1960's

The Granary Club, Welsh Back, Bristol

BRISTOL'S LEGENDARY
HOME OF ROCK
1969 to 1988

20 year history of the
celebrated venue and the musicians, groups
and disc jockeys who appeared there


Explore the club, its history, the people involved
and the bands that played there including
YES : KING CRIMSON : MOTT THE HOOPLE :
CURVED AIR : ARGENT : SLADE : SUPERTRAMP :
ATOMIC ROOSTER : GARY MOORE : THIN LIZZY :
ROBERT PLANT : DEF LEPPARD : FOCUS :
BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST : STATUS QUO : GENESIS :
URIAH HEEP : ROBERT PALMER : JUDAS PRIEST :
MANFRED MANN : BEBOP DELUXE : SQUEEZE :
AVERAGE WHITE BAND : MUNGO JERRY :
ALEX HARVEY : IAN DURY : DIRE STRAITS :
JOHNNY COUGAR : PAUL YOUNG : GINGER BAKER :
BLUES BAND : BILLY IDOL: CARAVAN :
STRANGLERS : MOTORHEAD : UFO
IRON MAIDEN : GRAHAM BOND

The Granary, Bristol City Centre, Bristol
£275,000, 2 bedroom flat

http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/agent.aspx?agentid=8145&opt=prop&pid=604108

Re: bristol ballrooms and coffee bars of the 1960's

Memories of DJ TONY PRINCE

When did you decided to become a disc jockey - when and where it really starts ?

I was a singer in a group in 1961/2. We were in the Manchester scene known as The Jasons and doing the clubs and dancehalls with The Hollies, The Dakotas, Herman's Hermits etc. In 1962 I became singer/guitarist with a fifteen piece orchestra at a new 'dancehall' which opened in my home town Oldham, Lancashire.One night the guy who played the records whilst the band had a break didn't show. The manager asked me if I'd play the records for a little more money. The DJ never returned. Forty years later I'm still 'stadning in' for him!The dancehall was part of the mighty Top Rank venue chain. They moved me and the band to Bristol where the Musicians Union secretary paid us a visit to see if we were being paid the right levels of salary. He suggested I should be paid more than I was as I worked all night singing then playing the records.Two weeks later, instead of telling me he had got me a pay raise, he told me I was breaking Union rules - 'Keep Music Live'. The MU was campaigning against records. Records were regarded as the enemy to live musicians. They even restricted how many the BBC could play each day.I was ultimately taken to a tribunal and used as a scape goat for Top Rank to test the untion rule. I was voted out of the union and Top rank compensated me by paying me TWICE as much as I'd received as a musician. This was their reward to me for being a 'scape-goat' for the rule and, in doing so, sacrificing my career as the next Elvis Presely!

When and how did you got into the Radio Caroline team ?

I was on a TV show in Bristol called 'Discs-a-Gogo' where I introduced all the big names of the 60's. So I was a tv DJ before a radio DJ. One guest on the show was Tony Blackburn who came as a singer but he was also a pirate radio DJ. He told me about Radio Caroline, (we couldn't receive it in Bristol) and when the TV show ended I applied to the person Tony had directed me towards. I was with Caroline through 66/67 until the British government made it illegal for British Subjects to work on the pirate ships. Radio Caroline was the answer to the Musicians Union. Now no one could stop us playing music and teenagers got what they wanted.

Re: bristol ballrooms and coffee bars of the 1960's

"Bristol's music scene"

Bristol is a city rich in musical pioneers. Tricky, Roni Size, and Massive Attack are just a few of the internationally renowned musicians from the city. Such names today have an important place in Bristol's musical heritage. Despite their stardom, such artists still take an interest in local issues; for example, local charities benefited from a Massive Attack performance in Queen's Square, 2003.

The band also uses their positions to voice opinions on behalf of local communities, refusing to play, for example, at the Colston Hall, Bristol's major music venue. This is because the hall is named after Edward Colston, who was linked to the transatlantic slave trade. Roni Size, another artist from Bristol, works with the city's disadvantaged youths on projects such as the Basement Project.

In Bristol in the late 1970s there were DJs such as Dennis Richard, Martin Star, Seymour, and Superfly playing what was called 'funk' and 'disco'. They were playing in local clubs such as The Granary, Le Carno, Charlottes and Top Cat. More specialised clubs then started opening up, such as The Dug Out. These places were more relaxed, and unlike some of the other clubs, they did not have a strict door policy.

The musicians were both black and white and the audiences were increasingly mixed. It was in these venues that people from all areas of Bristol would meet as they listened to the early Wild Bunch DJs Nellee Hooper and Miles Johnson. As Nellee Hooper says of the Dug-Out club, "The Dug-Out couldn't have a better location at the top of the hill from St Pauls - the heart of the black music scene - and just down the hill from Clifton and the trendy punk/art scene, just dangerous enough for trendies to feel edgy, music cool and edgy enough to confuse and enthuse the dreads ... perfect!!" .

Big reggae stars like Gregory Isaacs or Dennis Brown played at the local Top Rank club as part of their tours, while other areas of Bristol swayed to the sounds of reggae at less official venues. Bristol-based reggae sound systems, such as the local St. Paul's band Black Roots, were playing the circuit of black community centres around the country.

In the early 1980s competing 'crews' like The Wild Bunch (who later became Massive Attack), 2Bad, City Rockers, UD4 (Roni Size's brother) and FBI Crew were battling it out on home-built speaker systems, modelled after those in Jamaica in the Caribbean. The Wild Bunch became legendary for their much-attended parties at which their music sets combined punk, reggae and Rhythm and Blues. They played at local events, such as St Pauls Carnival and in disused or empty buildings in or close to the St. Pauls area. After the St. Pauls riots in 1980, the police avoided the area, which made such gigs possible. Young people of all colours became obsessed with the emerging hip-hop music.

Massive Attack, Tricky, Soul II Soul's Nellee Hooper, and Smith & Mighty sprang from the 1980s eclecticism of Bristol sound. Reprazent, a drum n' bass collective including Roni Size followed suit. No wonder Roni says that "you can't do the Bristol sound justice by saying that it's one thing. It's many things - a party vibe, a deep vibe - it changes".

Despite travelling the world, Reprazent are still based in Bristol. The city's African-Caribbean community hold the collective in high regard, as Roni Size comments: "When people see people like me from our community in magazines or see me spin records or hear my records play on radio. They start to get hope and they think: "if he can do it, I can do it". It gives these people some kind of trust, they call our music their music. In that way we have started our own movement, act like our own government. Because that's what a government is supposed to do, get peoples hope up."
Music has always played a major role in the community of Bristol. Roni grew up in Bristol and was influenced by the music around him. As he states, "We used to have sound systems in schools. Think about it, a normal school with all the windows shaking because of the sound. That was a normal thing back then and things like that are still happening. I always wanted to be involved with music, but at first there was no way I could do that. I had no money to buy a Technics [a turntable for playing records on] or a sampler, the only thing I could make music with was by human beatboxing into a microphone. But I had to find something I could relate to and that's why I went to do youth work stuff."

Bristol is still a vibrant musical centre. For example, turntable DJ Mad Cut, still in his early twenties, last year won Britain's most prestigious 'scratching'-specialist awards - the National DMC Championships. He makes regular trips to London and has visited America several times, mixing with the likes of Krissy Kris. Another contemporary Bristol success story is Aspects. Their album, Correct English has won much media praise. This year has seen a massive increase in British hip-hop sales and Bristol hip-hop is the biggest seller of all. Bristol is home to numerous record labels and clubs, which are home to and support a wide range of local sounds.

Re: bristol ballrooms and coffee bars of the 1960's

Hi I had already replied to your request Re Glen ballroom before I found this letter. I worked as a doorman at the Locarno during 1976/7 at that time the General Manager was Martin Jones, there was a band & a group playing alternately on centre stage everynight the band always started their spot with "Fanfare for the common man" the lead female singer I think sang one time with "Pickedy whitch" she later gained notoriety when she was the first person to be diagnosed as allergic to the 20th century, she was actually moved into a house built entirely from alergy neutral materials. I later worked at Smiths, The Doghouse, Sinatras, Cinderellas & finally at Martels I finished there in 1984 just before moving to Cornwall.
You may remember around 1962/3/4 roller skating at Bristol South Baths during the Winter months this was usually followed by Cola floats at the Wimpy bar, situated at the London hotel end of East St, Bedminster. We all rode motorbikes & scooters in those days (i still do)and the Wimpy bar was a meeting place. During the late 70s & 80s during the CB era another favorite meeting cafe was the situated adjacent to the floating harbour under the Ashton Gate flyovers. I hope this has been of help, it certainly gave me chance to remember some good times.