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The History of the Flamingo Club...
The Flamingo Club, Wardour Street, London - not just the birthplace of the Soul Stylists and the Modernists.
When you think of London's great music clubs and venues, names like the Marquee, the Astoria and Ronnie Scott's spring more readily to mind maybe, than that of the Flamingo Club.
But scratch the surface and you'll find that the Flamingo saw performances from some of the world's greatest acts, witnessed the birth of the whole 'mod-teen' cult in the sixties and set in train one of the most quietly influential and constant strands running through music and fashion in the five decades since - the 'Soul Stylists'.
The man behind the Flamingo Club was every bit as flamboyant as its name. Impresario Jeff Kruger founded the club at its original location at the Mapleton Hotel in Leicester Square, way back in 1952. Adverse publicity and unwelcome associations with less savoury all night Jazz clubs in the same building brought accusations of prostitution so in 1957, Kruger decamped to the better known Flamingo's location at 33 Wardour Street.
There, things really started to take off. Late night sessions proved wildly popular with black American servicemen on weekend passes as well as with young, white, working class boys. The unique atmosphere created by this social melting pot was matched in every way by the music - Jazz, R&B, Beat and even Skiffle came together in a glorious and eclectic mixture just as diverse as backgrounds of the club's patrons. Within this heady atmosphere reputations were formed and the Soul Stylists came into being.
1960 saw Georgie Fame become the club's resident artist and for three straight years Georgie and his band, The Blue Flames, belted out their famous brand of jazz-infused R&B from midnight to 6am every Friday and Saturday. This culminated in 1964 with the recording of their legendary live album "Rhythm and Blues from the Flamingo".
There follows a 'Who's Who' of great names from the '60's including; Zoot Money, Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds and John Lee Hooker. Amongst many others Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Geno Washington and even Jimi Hendrix were to cut their teeth performing at the Flamingo Club.
It's said that Hendrix walked into the club one night and asked if he could jam. Jeff Kruger recalls, "I asked who he was and he said he had just arrived. I suggested that he hung in until the all-niter started and introduced him to the night manager, Rik Gunnell, who arranged for him to play and electrify the place and so history was made yet again at the Flamingo."
Gunnell was one of Kruger's associates from the Flamingo's beginnings at the Mapleton Hotel, who followed the club to Wardour Street and in doing so was instrumental in running the infamous all-niters that attracted so many future stars to both watch and perform.
Legend has it that bands were formed through chance meetings at late night jam sessions, probably the most notable being Fleetwood Mac, when Flamingo mainstay Zoot Money introduced Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green. The rest, as they say, is history.
And as if events like these don't confer a sufficiently mythic status on the Flamingo, Jeff Kruger regularly introduced rock acts that would go on to achieve global status; numbering amongst their stratospheric ranks Van Morrison, Deep Purple, The Moody Blues, The Who and Led Zeppelin, who merged new levels of power with blues, free-jazz and even folk to define a new genre of music.
In those days the Flamingo's official capacity of around 400 would often be swelled to a regulations-defying 600 or more. Just imagine the rush of energy, heat and sheer joy of seeing such a fantastic array of talent in such intimate surroundings, night after night. Little wonder that Wardour Street's Flamingo was to London what the Cavern was to Liverpool and Birdland to New York.
The Flamingo's tolerant approach to all comers led to a truly broad church of musical styles being embraced, in an atmosphere that buzzed with creativity and open-mindedness and which reflected the broad social spectrum from which it's die-hard attendees were drawn.
Soul Stylist fashion and attitude, now often dubbed Modernism, reflects this transition of differing musical styles coming together in the London of the late '50s and '60s. From the culture shock of the black American servicemen and their love of bebop mixing with the first of the British post-war generation to avoid National Service (and spend their hard-earned cash on clothes and going out), through to the sharply dressed Mods of the early 1960s, who provided an enduring template for bands like The Jam.
And it didn't stop there. These influences continued, extending to the dawning of the Skinhead and Suedehead movements which provided the musical and stylistic inspirations for 1980s bands like Madness, The Beat and The Specials - the Soul Stylist credo remained a central and unifying theme.
It also encompassed Britain's 'Northern Soul' scene, which saw thousands of youngsters in the North of England dedicate their lives to buying the most obscure American soul records and then, from all points of the compass, descend on the improbable location of the Wigan Casino, mecca of the Northern Soul movement. From there sprang, the 'Soulboy' and the 'Casual', as well as 2001's Mod inheritors - the youth who made up the acid house and hip-hop scene.
The man who perhaps best typifies the ageless cool that harks back in an unbroken line to the late 50s, is the 'Modfather' himself, Paul Weller. He has often talked with fondness and respect about the Soul Stylists; that continuing family of those with 'The Look' that can be traced back to the post-war years at the Flamingo Club and whose look and attitude renews itself with each generation.
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