London's "Tin Pan Alley" is quite simply Europe’s best music street, filled with specialist music shops and thronging with people passionate about music. There’s hardly a rock and roll legend that hasn’t visited at some time. Music history has been made here; The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix recorded in the basements... Elton John wrote the classic Your Song on the rooftops...
In
short, Denmark Street is forever associated with music.
Earning the nickname of London’s Tin Pan Alley in the 1920s,
musicians have flocked to this renowned corner of Soho since
its origins as a sheet music supplier in Victorian times.
Most of the buildings date from the 1800s when it was
considered a fairly inferior area with its proximity to the
theatres and pubs of Soho. Rents were cheap, attracting
struggling artists, composers, and musicians. Music
publishers set up their businesses here around the 1890s,
supplying the musicians of the orchestras at nearby theatres
and music halls. In the 1930s, shop windows displayed pianos
and guitars and the street was becoming renowned for music
publishing.
Recording
studios started setting up in the 1960s, and it was then
that Denmark Street’s name was etched into the archives.
Denmark Street’s impact on the contemporary music scene is
widely regarded as far greater than the more populist
location of Abbey Road. In 1963 Regent Sounds Studio was set
up at 4 Denmark Street. With the Rolling Stones recording
their first album here, the studio took off as the place to
be seen to be making music. Now home to the specialist music
bookshop Helter Skelter, anecdotes abound of the Kinks, ELP
and Hendrix recording here in the basements. The studio was
supplied with the latest in 1970s music technology, with a
reverb room at the back of the present day bookshop, and a
cutting-edge 16-track machine housed in the basement that
drew the likes of Stevie Wonder in 1974.The studio closed in
the late 70s, becoming a comic bookstore The Forbidden
Planet, before opening as Helter Skelter in 1995. As well as
publishing their own titles and moving heaven and earth to
get you that rare tome in record time, the specialist store
also houses an impressive range showcasing the genre -
biographies, anthologies, tributes, and retrospectives -
making it an essential destination for music lovers.
The street still houses recording studios, publishers and
even manufacturers. Orange Music Electronics Company has a
long history of supplying amps and electrical goods
throughout the world - all from a basement in Denmark
Street. Many of the present day music shops have a long
musical history. Rose Morris at number 11 was set up in 1919
by Charles and Leslie Rose and Victor Morris, expanding to
six floors of musical instruments and printed music. In the
late 1960s, Rhodes opened at number 22, making it one of the
oldest guitar shops in the country. The London PA Centre at
number 23 is home to a vast range of musical electrical
supplies, as well as a black-caped and evidently musical
resident Victorian ghost!
Ever
since David Bowie notoriously set up residence in a camper
van on the street near his studios, celebrity musicians have
flocked here. Bob Marley famously bought his very first
guitar here and Lou Reed whiled away many a "perfect day".
Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Andy Kershaw, Eric Clapton and
Beatles producer George Martin are frequent visitors.
The now defunct Giaconda Café became the place to relax,
drink and mingle with like-minded musicians and workers in
the industry. The Sex Pistols even took up residence here in
the mid-1970s. It functioned as almost a recruitment centre
for jobbing musicians seeking work the easy way. Producers
were renowned for coming to the café to find musicians to
join their bands. A niche community developed which still
remains today, in the friendly atmosphere of a street with a
shared enthusiasm - or more accurately, obsession! And
there’s always music wafting from basements, shop windows
and balconies!