1943

 

British jazz pioneer George Webb launches weekly sessions featuring ‘authentic’ New Orleans-style jazz at the Red Barn pub in Bexley. The sessions mark a reaction against the slick swing jazz sound that dominated the commercial music market at the time, and prefigure a succession of grass roots convulsions that will revolutionise the UK music scene over the next decades.

 

1945

 

Innovative US jazz saxophonist Art Pepper moonlights from his army posting in the UK to play a brief ‘unofficial’ residency at Feldman’s Club at 100 Oxford Street. The residency has a major impact on aspiring jazz modernists in London, including British jazz saxophonist and future club owner, Ronnie Scott.

 

1946

 

Doug Dobell takes over his father’s antiquarian bookshop in Charing Cross Road and reserves a small area of the premises for sale and exchange of 78 rpm records.

 

1947

 

Jan       David Jones (later better known as David Bowie) is born in Stockwell.

 

Sep      Future astral folkie and glam rock star Marc Bolan is born in Hackney.

 

1948

 

 

Dec      Club Eleven, generally revered as the fountainhead of modern jazz in the UK, launches at 41 Great Windmill Street.

 

Other events that year …

 

Victor Feldman changes his policy to accommodate bebop jazz at his club at 100 Oxford Street on Sunday nights.

 

1950

 

April    Club Eleven is raided by police. Cocaine, morphine and cannabis are seized, and the club is closed down.

 

July      US folk blues legend Josh White plays a landmark series of gigs at the Chiswick Empire.

 

Other events that year …

 

Bowing to growing interest in New Orleans-style ‘trad’ jazz, club owner Victor Feldman begins featuring revivalist-style jazz evenings at his club at 100 Oxford Street.

 

Riotous Aussie trad jazzers, the Graeme Bell Jazz Band, encourage dancing during their Monday nighters at the No. Jazz Club in Leicester Square.

 

Doug Dobell relaunches has antiquarian bookshop on Charing Cross Road as a jazz and blues record shop. The location becomes a meeting place for jazz and blues fans from around the country.

 

Simon Nicol, future founder member of influential British folk rockers, Fairport Convention, is born in Fortis Green.

 

1951

 

Sep      Folk blues legend Big Bill Broonzy makes his UK debut before a small group of hardcore folk blues fans at Kingsway Hall.

 

Other events that year …

 

Vy Hyland opens Studio 51, a tiny basement club in Great Newport Street. The club swiftly succeeds the late Club Eleven as a bastion of bebop jazz in the UK.

 

UK trad jazz trumpeter Humphrey Littleton begins his weekly Humphrey Littleton Club at 100 Oxford Street. The sessions mark the growing popularity of trad jazz in the UK.

 

In either this year, or 1952, jazz guitarist and blues fanatic Ken Colyer introduces a ‘breakdown group’ featuring guitar/vocals, piano, bass and washboard rhythm section, into sets by his band, the Crane River Jazz Band. The raw, folk blues sound – known as skiffle – will become massively popular in the UK later in the decade, and will influence a whole generation of aspiring musicians, including the Beatles.

 

1952

 

Aug      The Flamingo Club – then known as Jazz at the Mapleton – starts out in the basement of the Mapleton Restaurant on Whitcomb (or Coventry Street). The music policy is strictly modernist. Promoters Rik and John Gunnell play an important role in the club with their ‘Jazz at the Flamingo’ sessions. The Gunnell brothers soon take over the club and, a decade later, shift it to Wardour Street where it will become one of the most influential venues in ‘60s r&b and rock.

 

 

Other events this year …

 

Blues guitarist and harmonica player Cyril Davies and guitarist and Woody Guthrie fan Bob Watson launch the London Skiffle Centre, London’s first skiffle club, on the first floor of the Roundhouse pub on Wardour Street. (Some accounts say the club launched in 1952.)

 

The New Musical Express - one of the UK’s most popular and influential music weeklies from the 1960s onwards – is launched from an office in Denmark Street, off London’s Charing Cross Road.

 

1953

 

Fresh from a trip to New Orleans in late 1953, trad jazzer Ken Colyer continues to include a skiffle session with his new band, the Ken Colyer Band, on Friday nights at Humph’s at 100 Oxford Street. The skiffle group includes Lonnie Donegan on guitar and Alexis Korner on mandolin. Donegan will go on to have a huge UK hit with his version of Leadbelly’s Rock Island Line in 1956. Korner will become a formative figure in British r&b and will play an indirect but crucial role in the founding of the Rolling Stones early in the following decade.

 

Collett’s record store opens on New Oxford Street. Along with Dobell’s, Collett’s will become an indispensable source of imported US blues and r&b during the 1950s and ‘60s.

 

London’s first Gaggia espresso coffee machine is installed at the Moka coffee bar in Frith Street, Soho. With their European, beatnik aura (and superior coffee), coffee bars like the Moka quickly supercede existing cafes and milk bars and provide the perfect backdrop for London’s emerging folk, blues and skiffle scene.

 

1954

 

Bunjie’s Folk Cellar opens. Over the years, the tiny basement venue will feature some of the great names in folk, pop and rock before they became famous, Paul Simon, Rod Stewart, Donovan, David Bowie and Bob Dylan among them.

 

Joe Meek lands a job as a sound balance engineer at IBC Studios. Despite his volatile personality, he quickly establishes a reputation as an innovator and is the first person in the UK to both produce and engineer a recording (Humphrey Littleton’s Bad Penny Blues). Over the next decade his use of experimental recording techniques and pioneering role as an independent producer will help inspire a generation of pivotal UK producer/impresarios, Andrew Loog Oldham (the Rolling Stones) and Malcolm McLaren (the Sex Pistols) among them.

 

1955

 

Aug      Aspiring skiffler Tommy Hicks is offered a contract by impresario Larry Parnes following a performance at prestigious cabaret venue, the Stork Room, on Regent Street. Renamed Tommy Steele, over the next few years Hicks will go on to become the UK’s first major home-grown rock & roll star.

 

Sep      Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies launch a rhythm & blues-orientated skiffle club at the Roundhouse on Wardour Street. Renamed (in 1957) the Blues & Barrelhouse Club, under Korner’s growing influence the club’s repertoire will shift from skiffle towards r&b and electric blues. Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee will be among legendary American blues artists to perform here over the next few years.

 

Other events this year …

           

The Fantasie (aka Fantasy) coffee bar opens in Kings Road, Chelsea. The coffee bar will play a central role in the evolution of ‘the whole Chelsea thing’ that would explode internationally in the following decade.

 

1956

 

April    Trad jazzer Ken Colyer takes over the Studio 51 bebop jazz club on Great Newport Street, renames it the Ken Colyer Club. Colyer is not a bebop fan, and realigns the club’s policy towards New Orleans and Dixieland-style jazz. Skiffle sessions become a popular feature at the club.

 

July      The Soho Fair, generally recognised as Britain’s first ‘pop’ festival of any significance takes place in and around Old Compton Street in Soho. Comprising of a parade of half a dozen top skiffle groups, the Fair culminates in a set by ace skifflers, the Vipers, outside the 2 I’s coffee bar, an event that will help establish the 2 I’s as the pivotal venue in the evolution of early British pop and rock & roll.

 

Sep      Brian Epstein moves to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Though he remains only a few months, the experience instills a fascination for theatre and show business that will help propel him into taking over the management of the (then unknown) Beatles six years later.

 

            Having failed is 11-plus examination, Rod Stewart starts at the William Grimshaw secondary modern school in Highgate.

 

Other events this year …

 

London-based skiffle stalwart Lonnie Donegan enjoys a massive international hit with his version of the Leadbelly song, Rock Island Line. It is the first white version of a black American blues song to reach a mass commercial market (predating Elvis?)

 

The Breadbasket coffee bar opens in Cleveland Street. Along with the Cat’s Whiskers in Kingly Street, the venue provides an early platform for London’s fast-growing skiffle scene.

 

Live recordings of rising skiffle stars the Vipers and the Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group are made at the Gyre & Gimble coffee bar.

 

The Drifters, later to metamorphasise into Cliff Richards’ backing group, the Shadows, play their first gig at the Heaven & Hell club in Soho early this year.

 

1957

 

Feb     Pioneering US rock & roller Bill Haley is mobbed by three thousand screaming teenagers at Waterloo Station at the start of his epochal debut British tour. A newspaper dubs the event ‘the second Battle of Waterloo’.

 

Independent record label ‘77’, run by London record shop owner Doug Dobell, records Alexis Korner’s Breakdown Group, featuring Cyril Davies on harmonica. Both Korner and Davies will go on to become prime movers in the evolution of London’s rhythm and blues scene.

 

          

Other events that year …

 

US folk blues legend Big Bill Broonzy plays to packed audiences at the Royal Festival Hall.

 

Pioneering UK record producer Joe Meek joins jazz supreme Denis Preston to set up Lansdowne Studios in Notting Hil1. Lansdowne will go on to become one of London’s most important independent studios during the 1960s and ‘70s.

 

1958

 

Mar      Buddy Holly & the Crickets perform at the London Palladium. The seven-minute performance is broadcast live by ATV television as part of the hugely popular Sunday Night at the London Palladium show. A show later that month at the Hammersmith Odeon is marred by a fight between Holly and his bass player in the dressing room before the show, in which Holly’s expensively capped front teeth are knocked out. Holly’s subsequent performance is described as the worst of his career.

 

April    The National Jazz Federation launches the Marquee Jazz Club at 165 Oxford Street, with a policy of presenting a range of jazz groups, from traditional to modern.

 

EMI producer George Martin offers top skiffle group a recording contract after seeing them perform at the 2 I’s in Soho. They cut their first album at Abbey Road’s Studio Two – the same studio in which, a few years later, Martin will produce a string of mega-successful albums by another promising young group – the Beatles.

 

The Drifters, featuring Harry Webb on vocals, are hired as house band at Soho’s 2 I’s coffee bar for the whole of the month. Renamed Cliff Richard, Webb will shortly emerge as the UK’s first mega-rock & roll-cum-pop star, dominating the charts for the next five years, until the advent of the Beatles and Merseybeat in 1963. Following a name change to the Shadows, the Drifters will also go on to enjoy massive chart success in the UK.

 

Muddy Waters makes his London debut at St Pancras Town Hall, offending British blues purists by performing at loud volume with his full electric band.

 

July      Cliff Richard and the Drifters (two members of) record the epochal British rock & roll single, Move It, at Abbey Road studios. A classic of rock & roll lite, Move It storms the charts and establishes Richard as the nation’s number one teen idol overnight.

 

Other events that year …

 

In the wake of the notorious Notting Hill race riots earlier that year, the first Notting Hill Carnival is held at St Pancras Town Hall.

 

Designer Christopher Gibbs visits Morocco where he is hugely influenced by Moroccan art and culture. Gibbs will become a major influence in spreading a flavour for the exotic into the late sixties rock and pop scene, notably through his friendship with the Rolling Stones.

 

Schoolboy Michael ‘Mike’ Jagger and pal Dick Taylor see a performance by Buddy Holly & the Crickets at the Woolwich Odeon during their second tour of the UK. Jagger is reportedly ‘absolutely transfixed’ by Holly’s performance.

 

1959

 

Feb      Cliff Richard lays a six-night engagement here. It is the first time ‘a leading disc artist’ has headlined at the top dancing venue.

 

Oct      Ronnie Scott’s jazz club opens in a basement in Gerard Street with the legendary Tubby Hayes Quartet headlining.

 

Glaswegian entrepreneur opens His Shop on Carnaby Street. The shop will soon become a mecca for London’s emerging ‘mod’ culture, and marks the beginning of Carnaby Street as a driving force in the evolution of sixties pop culture.

 

1960

 

Apr      Eddie Cochran opens his ill-starred UK tour at the Hackney Empire. Cochran will be killed a few weeks later when his car crashes into a tree near Bristol.

 

1961

 

Jan       Future Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones auditions successfully to join ex-Shadows members Jet Harris and Tony Meehan. Harris and Meehan will go on to enjoy several UK chart hits in the early sixties.

 

Dec      The Beatles, minus George Harrison, and with Pete Best on drums, deliver an impromptu performance at the shortlived Blue Gardenia Club in Soho – their first-ever London appearance.

 

            In one of the most fateful meetings in the history in British rock, London School of Economics student Mick Jagger bumps into old school pal Keith Richards on the platform at Dartford Station. Jagger is carrying some blues records, Richards is carrying his guitar, and the two get chatting …

 

1962

 

Jan       The Beatles audition for Decca Records in West Hampstead, and are turned down in favour of Brian Poole & the Tremeloes.

 

Mar      Alexis Korner launches the Ealing Club, an unprepossessing cellar venue in West London that will become one of the most pivotal clubs in the history of London rock and pop. The club is basically a showcase for Korner’s r&b outfit Blues Incorporated, but will provide an open platform for visiting musicians to ‘sit in’. Among these will be vocalist Mike Jagger and Cheltenham blues guitarist. The drummer with Korner’s band is one Charlie Watts.

 

May     Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated is a surprise hit at the jazz-orientated Marquee Club in Oxford Street. They are awarded a residency and are soon attracting crowds of up to a thousand a night.

 

            Brian Epstein plays a demo tape of the Beatles to EMI producer George Martin. Martin is sufficiently impressed to offer the group an audition.

 

June     The Beatles audition successfully for George Martin at Abbey Road Studios (Martin himself insists the audition took place several months earlier, in March 1962).

 

July      Unknown r&b group the Rollin’ Stones (sic) featuring Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ian Stewart, Dick Taylor and Mick Avory play the first of several gigs at the Marquee Club in Oxford Street.

 

Teenage r&b group, the Detours, later to achieve fame as the Who, play a series of gigs at the Paradise Club, Peckham, during July and August.

 

Oct      The Rollin’ Stones, featuring Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Ian Stewart and Tony Chapman, record their first-ever demos at the Curly Clayton studio in Highbury.

 

Nov     The Rollin’ Stones play the first of a series of gigs at the Flamingo Club in Soho. On the 30^th of the month, they appear at the Piccadilly Club, also in Soho, supporting the Dave Hunt Group (featuring future Kinks frontman Ray Davies on guitar). Other accounts place the gig on Boxing Day, 1962.

 

Dec      Obscure visiting folk singer Bob Dylan plays a short set between comedy turns at the Establishment Club in Soho (other accounts place the appearance in January 1963). He also makes a legendary appearances at the Pindar of Wakefield pub before a taciturn and unimpressed Ewan McColl, and at the Troubadour club in Fulham.

 

            Bass player Bill Wyman auditions successfully for the Rolling Stones at the Wetherby Arms on Kings Road.

 

 

 

Other events this year …

 

            In spring 1962, aspiring blues guitarist Brian Jones – newly arrived in London from his native Cheltenham – places an ad for musicians to attend auditions at the Bricklayers Arms, Soho, for an as-yet-unnamed r&b group.

 

            Early in 1962, the Detours, a group of West London teenagers featuring future Who vocalist Roger Daltrey on lead guitar and trombone, make their debut at Sulgrave Boys Club in Shepherd’s Bush. Several months and personnel changes later, the group will feature Dalrey’s schoolboy chums Pete Townsend and John Entwhistle on lead guitar and bass respectively, with Daltrey switching to vocals and rhythm guitar.

 

            The Crawdaddy Club, soon to become a pivotal location in the early history of the Rolling Stones, is launched at the Station Hotel, Richmond.

 

            During the summer of 1962, talented amateur blues guitarist, labourer and occasional relief postman Eric Clapton, makes his first public performance at the Crown pub, Kingston.

 

1963

 

Jan       The classic line-up of the Rolling Stones – including Bill Wyman on bass and Charlie Watts on drums – makes its first-ever live appearance, at the Flamingo Club in Soho. The band also makes its first appearance at the Marquee Club, on 10 January, supporting the Cyril Davis All Stars. After falling out with the club’s management, the band play their last Marquee gig on 31 January. With one exception, the band never played at the club again.

 

Mar      Prototype Swinging London nightclub, the Ad Lib, is launched by Establishment club co-owner Nicholas Luard and Chelsea set member Lord Timothy Willoughby.

 

All four Beatles attend a Rolling Stones gig at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond and afterwards hang out with the Stones at the latter’s grubby flat in Edith Grove, Fulham.

 

April    The Rolling Stones record twelve demo tracks at a Wimbledon recording studio. At group leader Brian Jones’ insistence, the tracks boast a level of distortion at odds with the clean sound that was fashionable at the time.

 

            The Detours, later better-known as the Who, play their first gig at the Oldfield Hotel, Greenford. Their gigs here over the next eighteen months will help solidify their reputation as one of London’s leading r&b outfits.

 

June     The Detours (see above) begin a series of engagements at Notre Dame Hall, off Leicester Square, that will continue through the summer.

 

            George Michael is born in Finchley.

 

July      The Pickwick Club opens in Great Newport Street and quickly becomes a favourite with London’s swinging ‘in-crowd’, including the Beatles.

 

Sep      The Rolling Stones are refused service at the Salisbury pub on St Martin’s Lane.

 

            The Rolling Stones conclude a long-term weekly residency at Studio 51 on Great Newport Street. A crowd of 400, unable to get in to the club for the sold-out gig, gather on the pavement outside.

 

The Beatles top the bill at the Great Pop Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. The Rolling Stones are among the ten supporting acts.

 

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards move into a flat in Mapesbury Road, West Hampstead, with they share with their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham.

 

Oct      The Beatles make their first appearance on the Sunday Night at the London Palladium show. The melee outside the theatre is photographed by the press and gives the UK its first taste of ‘Beatlemania’.

 

            The Beatles move to London full-time, to a flat in Green Street, Mayfair, where they remain until March 1964. It is the only time all four Beatles share a flat together, although Paul McCartney is already spending much of his time at girlfriend Jane Asher’s family home in Wimpole Street.

 

            The Rolling Stones record their first UK top ten hit, I Wanna Be Your Man, at Kingsway Studios.

 

Nov     The Beatles appear at a Royal Variety Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre. John Lennon makes headlines with a quip inviting posher members of the audience to ‘rattle their jewellery’.

 

            Hysterical audience reaction to support act the Rolling Stones blows bill-toppers the Everly Brothers off the stage at the Hammersmith Odeon.

 

            Police are called to restore order at a chaotic Stones gig at the Kilburn State Cinema.

 

Dec      The Ad Lib club is re-launched by new owners Al and Bob Burnett, with Brian Morris of posh Mayfair. It will swiftly become the trendiest club in London, frequented by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and numerous other leading lights of London’s fast set.

 

On New Year’s eve, the Kinks get their first big break, playing a gig at the China Garden restaurant in Soho, impressing booking agent Arthur Howe who signs them as a support act on a Dave Clark Five tour, starting the following day.

 

The Detours – soon to undergo a name change to the Who –  play a support slot for the Rolling Stones at which Detours’ guitarist Pete Townshend is deeply impressed by Keith Richards’ ‘windmill’ strumming technique.

           

Other events that year …

 

            His Shop in Carnaby Street begins to attract a new clientele of young white teenagers with jobs and cash to spare. These youngsters, who called themselves ‘mods’, are spearheading a revolution in clothes and music that will have a radical impact on British pop culture over the next few years.

 

            Early in the year, Brian Epstein visits Millings clothes store on Old Compton Street and, together with Dougie and Gordon Millings, comes up with the design for the soon-to-be famous ‘Beatle suits’.

 

            The Piccadilly Club in Soho is taken over by new management and relaunched as the Scene Club, under which name it will go on to achieve legendary status among Britain’s mods.

 

            In early Spring 1963, a pivotal meeting takes place at offices Radnor House, Regent Street, where r&b upstarts the Rolling Stones meet with Andrew Loog Oldham and Eric Easton to discuss a management deal.

 

            Aspiring r&b singer Rod Stewart finds employment as a grave digger in Highgate cemetery.

 

1964

 

Jan       To scenes of mass hysteria, the Beatles headline a charity revue at the London Palladium.

 

            The Rolling Stones record tracks for their debut album at Regent Sound on Denmark Street.

 

            R&b fan Rod Stewart impresses singer Long John Baldry with some impromptu harmonica soloing on the platform of Richmond Station. Baldry invites Stewart to join his band.

 

Feb      The Detours play their first gig as ‘the Who’ at the Oldfield Hotel, Greenford.

 

Mar      The Marquee Club opens at a new venue in Wardour Street. Headliners on the night are the Yardbirds, featuring their new guitarist, Eric Clapton. The gig is recorded and released as the UK r&b classic, Five Live Yardbirds.

 

            The Beatles’ management company, NEMS, headed by Brian Epstein, opens prestigious new offices on Argyll Street, next door to the London Palladium.

 

            Beatles Ringo Starr and George Harrison move to a flat in Williams Mews, SW1. Brian Epstein and valet occupy an apartment upstairs.

 

April    The Who play one of their first central London gigs in support of the Mike Cotton Sound at the 100 Club on Oxford Street.

 

            Location filming for the casino and discotheque sequences in the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night takes place at Les Ambassadeurs club in Mayfair.

 

            Filming for A Hard Day’s Night wraps in Edgehill Road, W13, with a scene involving Ringo Starr.

 

            Brian Jones moves into 13 Chester Street, home to rowdy UK r&b group, the Pretty Things. He stays until June.

 

May     Bob Dylan stuns a capacity audience with an electrifying concert at the Royal Festival Hall.

 

The Animals record their seminal version of House Of The Rising Sun at De Lane Lea Studios, Kingsway. (Bob Dylan also recorded a version of the song on his first album.)

 

June     Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards move to a flat in Holly Hill. The duo write the group’s first self-penned single, The Last Time.

 

            The Who begin a legendary Tuesday night residency at the Railway Hotel, Harrow. The gigs will soon become a mecca for London’s mods.

 

            Tired of harassment from press and fans, George Harrison and girlfriend Patti Boyd move to a house in Esher, Surrey.

 

July      The Rolling Stones play at Beat City Oxford Street. Hundreds of fans unable to get into the gig jam the streets all around. Unknown Welsh r&b singer Tom Jones and his group the Squires play the support slot.

 

            Ambitious scenesters Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp meet Who manager Pete Meaden at a restaurant in Greek Street, where they agree a deal to take over management of the group.

 

            Following George Harrison’s example, John & Cynthia Lennon move out of London to a mansion in Surrey.

 

Aug      The Who begin an epochal series of Wednesday night gigs at the Scene Club, Soho.

 

            Sessions for the Rolling Stones’ second album begin at Regent Sound, Denmark Street.

 

Sep      Aspiring r&b singer Rod Stewart makes his debut recordings at Decca Studios, West Hampstead.

 

            The High Numbers (soon to be renamed the Who) fail an audition for EMI at Abbey Road Studios.

 

Nov     The Who play the first of a series of Tuesday night gigs at the Marquee. Though initially poorly attended, the residency will soon go on to smash attendance records at the club.

 

            The Rolling Stones record their first EP at De Lane Lea Studios, Kingsway.

 

Dec      The Beatles commence their annual Christmas Show season on Christmas Eve at the Hammersmith Odeon.

 

            Beatles manager Brian Epstein buys a five-storey Georgian House in Chapel Street, SW1.

 

 

            Other events this year …

 

            Unknown American folk duo Simon & Garfunkel make their UK debut at the Flamingo Club in Soho.

           

            In spring 1964, the Kinks re-record a version of their self-penned You Really Got Me at IBC Studios in Portland Place. Released shortly afterwards, the track shoots straight to the top of the UK charts.

 

            Early in the year, following an acrimonious split with partner Eric Easton, Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham moves into offices in Maddox Street, Mayfair.

 

            In early 1964, the Kinks fail an audition for Decca Records (Decca has also previously turned down the Beatles).

 

1965

 

Jan       Ringo Starr proposes to girlfriend Maureen Cox at the Ad Lib Club. The two are married the following month.

 

Feb      American pop star wannabes the Walker Brothers arrive in London with a hope of grabbing a slice of the British pop revolution that is sweeping America.

 

            The Who record Substitute – arguably their finest pop single – at Olympic Studios in Barnes.

 

Mar      The Who record several tracks for their debut album at IBC Studios, Portland Place.

 

            On their way home from a gig in Romford, the Rolling Stones urinate in a garage forecourt in East Ham. Their action results in a court appearance and much tabloid press hysteria over the next months.

 

April    Beatles manager Brian Epstein acquires a three-year lease on the Saville Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.

 

            Bob Dylan and entourage check in to the Savoy Hotel at the start of his 1965 tour of the UK. Goings-on at the hotel will be memorably captured by filmmaker Don Pennebaker in his documentary record of the tour, Don’t Look Back.

 

Jul        Still trying to avoid harassment from fans, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards move from Holly Hill, West Hampstead, to Bryanstone Mews, W1.

 

            Following a meeting at the Hilton Hotel, Mayfair, the Rolling Stones hire tough-talking New York accountant Allan Klein to handle their financial affairs.

 

Aug      The Rolling Stones headline two concerts at the London Palladium.

 

            Beatles producer George Martin quits EMI and sets up AIR Studios in central London. He continues to work for EMI as a freelance, however.

 

            The Byrds make their central London debut at Blaise’s, an exclusive club in Kensington, before an audience that includes members of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

 

Oct      The Pink Floyd play their first major London gig as one of a number of bands to perform at the launch of the Roundhouse, Camden, as a music and ‘events’ venue. John Lennon and Paul McCartney are among those attending.

 

            The Beatles take LSD for the first time and drive out to George Harrison’s Surrey home while high on the drug. Lennon describes the house as ‘looking like a giant submarine’.

 

Nov     Ronnie Scott’s jazz club quits Gerrard Street and reopens in Frith Street, Soho.

 

Aug      The Notting Hill Carnival takes place on the streets of Notting Hill for the first time.

 

Other events that year …

 

            Elton John starts work as a tea-boy at Mills Music in Denmark Street.

 

            Teenage pop star wannabe David Jones – later better-known as David Bowie – meets his first band, the Lower Third, for the first time while hanging out at the Giaconda café on Denmark Street.

 

            The Scotch of St James club opens in spring 1965. The club will rapidly become one of the most exclusive haunts in Swinging London, popular with both the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.

 

            In the summer of 1965, Marc Bolan records his debut single at Decca Studios, West Hampstead.

 

            On the proceeds of a string of chart hits, Tom Jones buys a large house beside the Thames in Shepperton, Surrey.

 

Ringo Starr buys a vast Tudor-style mansion in Weybridge.

 

1966

 

Jan       The Goings-on, a pioneering weekly ‘events’ happening, starts in a club in Archer Street, Soho.

 

The Spontaneous Underground – a series of Sunday afternoon ‘happenings’ featuring the Pink Floyd – begins at the Marquee Club in Wardour Street.

 

The Pink Floyd make their debut appearance at the Countdown Club in West London.

 

Feb      Groovy disco and live venue Tiles opens on Oxford Street. The Animals headline on the opening night. The venue swiftly becomes a mecca for London’s mods, and remains open for business during weekday lunch hours.

 

            The Who’s first bill-topping performance takes place at the Astoria, Finsbury Park. The band receives a thunderous reception, despite technical problems throughout the show.

 

            EMI turns down the chance to sign the Pink Floyd, claiming the psychedelic fad would never catch on.

 

May     The Beatles and the Rolling Stones headline at the NME Poll Winners Concert at the Empire Pool, Wembley. It is the last time the Beatles and Stones appear on the same bill.

 

            Who guitarist Paul Townshend hits drummer Keith Moon over the head with a guitar during a fracas onstage at the Ricky Tick Club, Windsor.

 

June     A glamorous crowd of rock and pop celebs including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones attends the opening of one of London’s first discotheques, Sybilla’s, off Regent Street.

 

            UK pop star Cliff Richard announces his allegiance to born again-style Christianity at a Billy Graham prayer meeting at Earls Court.

 

            Keith Richards buys Redlands, an old medieval manor, in West Wittering, Sussex.

 

Aug      Singer Scott Walker is rushed to St Mary’s hospital in Paddington following an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

 

            Brian Jones and girlfriend Anita Pallenberg move to a flat in Courtfield Road, off Brompton Road, Kensington. Their stay here will become the basis for the archetypal decadent sixties’ rock star lifestyle, brilliantly evoked in the 1967 film Performance, starring Mick Jagger.

 

Sep      Unknown American guitar genius Jimi Hendrix arrives in London and immediately makes an impact with a virtuoso debut at the Scotch of St James.

 

            The Rolling Stones begin their last UK tour with Brian Jones in the line-up with a chaotic performance before screaming fans at the Royal Albert Hall.

 

Oct      The Pink Floyd play their first real 'psychedelic' gig at All Saints Church, Notting Hill.

 

            The Jimi Hendrix Experience record their epochal debut single, Hey Joe, at De Lane Lea studios in Kingsway.

 

A legendary jam session takes place between Hendrix and Eric Clapton’s new band Cream at the Polytechnic of Central London in which Hendrix comprehensively blows Clapton off the stage.

 

Nov     The Jimi Hendrix Experience makes its debut at a press reception at the Bag O’ Nails club in Soho.

 

            The Four Tops headline at the first of a dazzling series of Sunday night rock and pop shows at Brian Epstein’s Saville Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.

 

The Beatles begin work on their next album, the as-yet-unnamed Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

  

John Lennon is introduced to Yoko Ono at an exhibition at the Indica Gallery, off Piccadilly.

 

The Pink Floyd record demos of Interstellar Overdrive and an early version of Arnold Lane at a studio in Hemel Hempstead.

 

Dec      Legendary sixties club UFO opens in Tottenham Court Road. Over the next twelve months it will become a key venue for Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and London’s embryonic ‘underground’ hippie culture.

 

            Tara Browne, 21-year-old millionaire and friend of Paul McCartney and Brian Jones, dies in a 90 mph car smash in