#walkingtour #musichistory #london

00:00:00 Charing Cross Road
00:00:23 Musicroom London
00:00:46 Roland Store London
00:01:00 Rose Morris
00:01:19 No. Tom Guitars
00:02:27 Wunjo Guitars
00:02:43 Regent Sounds
00:03:28 Sixty Sixty Sounds
00:03:55 Hank's Guitar Shop
00:04:55 Westside MI
00:05:12 Regent Sounds
00_06:26 Now Arcade - Outernet London

"The history of Denmark Street, London’s music epicentre
From Tin Pan Alley to a guitar-shopping destination par excellence, London’s Denmark Street is a key part of the city’s musical history. As the street prepares to enter a new phase, we look back on its iconic past.
...
Through the years, Denmark Street has had at least three important musical lives. The first, lasting from the 19th century well into the late 20th, was as the home of the professional song business. The second, and the one we’re most interested in, began in the mid-60s as the street started to attract music-shop owners, and into the following decades it thrived as a key destination for guitarists and would-be players.

The third of Denmark Street’s lives is under way now and planned for the near future. Once the dust has settled, the street frontages will remain, but there will be a series of new venues and still, hopefully, plenty of guitar shops.

Pete Townshend complained to a London newspaper, saying: “In the 60s, I bought fuzzboxes and strings for my guitars from Macari’s guitar shop in Denmark Street. The Who did a backing-vocal rehearsal with Shel Talmy in Denmark Street at Regent Sound in 1964. I used to shop at the Drum Store when living in nearby Wardour Street, Soho. Boris Johnson [London mayor at the time of Pete’s letter] and Camden Council, please make Denmark Street a Heritage Zone. Otherwise a massive chunk of rock music history will be lost forever. Progress is important, but so are the local landmarks of our great city.”

The ‘Save Tin Pan Alley’ campaign said: “There is no equivalent anywhere in the world! Let’s celebrate this wonderful place and bring even more music back to Denmark Street in all of its vibrant diversity.”

The developer reckons the result of its efforts will be “a successful new quarter that will enrich and integrate with the surrounding well-established neighbourhood … and not only safeguard, but reinvigorate the area’s fantastic music and cultural scene”. Time will tell. Everything comes and goes.

Back in the day
Let’s take a walk down Denmark Street in the 1970s. The street had remained at the centre of the song business for some time, with many leading publishers in rooms and offices and cubbyholes up and down the street’s terraced buildings, the earliest of which date back to the 17th century. The inhabitants included old hands like Lawrence Wright (“You can’t go wrong with the Wright songs”) and Mills Music (where 17-year-old Elton John, still Reggie Dwight, once had a job making tea).

There were arrangers, copyists, musicians, too, and publications: Lawrence Wright started Melody Maker at number 19 in 1926 (soon relocating to Long Acre) and NME moved to number five in 1952 (also shifting to Long Acre, in ’64). Denmark Street became known as Tin Pan Alley, a reference to America’s original song-biz area in New York City, named for the racket made by so many pianists pounding out their potential hits.

There were a few music shops in Denmark Street before the rock boom of the 60s and 70s – Francis Day & Hunter at number 23, for example, was advertising Gibson guitars in the 1930s – but probably the first we’d recognise as a proper guitar shop was Musical Exchange, run by Joe and Larry Macari, who already had a couple of shops in the north-west reaches of outer London. They knew, though, that the centre of town was the place to be, and they opened at number 22 in the early months of 1965. Gary Hurst reckoned it was in the back of this shop that he made the original Tone Bender fuzz boxes, and it was the Musical Exchange shop that marked an early start to a shift in the street’s business.
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Changing times
We’re back in Denmark Street today. And as anywhere, it’s hard work on many levels to keep a music shop going. Among the hoardings and hard hats, you can still see Wunjo (guitars) on the corner of Charing Cross Road; Music Room (sheet-music) at number 19; Westside MI (guitars) at 23; Hank’s (guitars) at 27; and Sixty Sixty Sounds (guitars) at 28. Over the road, there’s another Music Room and Stairway To Kevin (repairs) at number 11; Rose-Morris (guitars and drums at eight, pianos at 10); NO.TOM (guitars) at six; Wunjo again at five; and Regent Sounds (guitars) and Noden (repairs) at four. They battle daily with the redevelopment chaos, and at the time of writing there was also the uncertainty and restrictions of coronavirus to deal with." - [ Ссылка ]

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