Book Review: Denmark Street: London’s Street of Sound by Peter Watts

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

What Tin Pan Alley is to America, Denmark Street is to the UK. It’s a surprisingly small street with a lot of history. London has many famous landmarks, but if you’re into music, Denmark Street is where a lot of things happened, and not just during the classic rock era, the story starts decades before that. For the uninitiated, Denmark Street is in the West End, a touristy part of London, so more than likely if you’ve been to London, you walked in the same footsteps as so many rock stars. That’s where the music publishers and guitar and music shops were, but oddly enough no record stores. Some hits that you’re familiar with were written or recorded there. The name comes from Prince George of Denmark, who married Queen Anne.

The book talks about the history of this small, but important street in London starting in the 17th century when that area was a very different place, where St Giles Hospital (a house for lepers) was, to its golden age in the first half 20th century to the classic rock years when the music industry was shaken up to decay in the 70s and 80s to rebirth in the 90s with Acid Jazz Records to construction and redevelopment in the 21st century.

Before it became Britain’s Tin Pan Alley, the nearby area, The Rookery, was a 19th century slum that Friedrich Engels visited, noting the broken windows everywhere, piles of rubbish everywhere stinking up the whole place, and said “there is nothing worth stealing” so doors were superfluous.

Each chapter of this book focuses on a different building on Denmark Street like Wright House on 19 Denmark Street, La Gioconda on 9, Regent Sounds on 4, KPM on 21, Hipgnosis and The Sex Pistols on 6, and Tin Pan Alley Club on 7. These chapters are not limited to talking about just those companies or buildings though.

Logically, the first chapter is about how Denmark Street came to be what we know it as and the origin story is a sad one beginning in the mines in Cumbria, a few hundred miles away, or a five and a half hour drive from Denmark Street. There was a mining disaster and music became a coping mechanism for the public with “Don’t Go Down in the Mine Dad” becoming a popular song among the public. It was an older song inspired by a mining disaster in Wales. The song’s publishing rights were owned by Lawrence Wright, the first music publisher to set up shop on Denmark Street and not just that, he was the founder of Melody Maker, yes that Melody Maker popular in the 60s and 70s. Some of the proceeds of the sheet music sales went to charity to help those affected by the disaster, but he kept some money for himself to move from the Midlands to London and set up shop there in 1911. At that time, it was a seedy area with some illegal drinking dens. This was an age before rock and roll and record players being ubiquitous so people went to hear music performed at music halls and popular songs were sold as sheet music. Publishers listened for good songs and approached songwriters to buy the rights to their song, but the publishers wouldn’t always pay well for the rights and often the deal means no royalties for the songwriter, that’s capitalism for you! Makes me think of The Kinks’ “The Moneygoround”. Just like how pluggers approached radio stations to play songs, the publishers had pluggers approach music halls to perform their songs.

As Alexander Armitage (grandson of composer Noel Gay, born Reginald Armitage) said in the book, in every publisher’s office on Denmark Street there was a piano and you’d hear it. Other publishers besides Noel Gay and Lawrence Wright included Campbell Connelly, Peter Maurice, Box & Cox, and Irwin Dash.

During WWII, Denmark Street was where Vera Lynn found the song “We’ll Meet Again”, basically the theme song of WWII, later covered in the 60s by The Byrds and The Turtles.

n the late 50s rock and roll took over and that meant that the character of Denmark Street would change again. NME was founded in 1952 with its predecessors being Accordion Times and Musical Express. NME were more with-it because it was more colourful and published charts of the top selling records in the country and so it appealed more to teenagers, while Melody Maker focused more on sheet music and was more old fashioned, but eventually they adapted to the changing market in order to stay afloat. Songwriters looked to the coffee bars of Soho for inspiration and for singers to sing the songs. Eventually a coffee bar called La Gioconda opened up. It was a favourite spot for a pre-fame David Bowie. He was spotted there in 1964 with his shoulder length hair and him claiming to be the founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long Haired Men. Fellow glam rockers Marc Bolan and Elton John would also go there too.

Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham considered Denmark Street to be his shrine when he was a teenager and he loved how raw the sound of Regent Sound Studios so much that he had The Rolling Stones record their debut album there – a more raw, real sound compared to The Beatles’ polished Abbey Road Studios sound. Meanwhile in the neighbouring studio, Donovan was recording his first album, which had the Dylanesque hit “Catch The Wind”. Business deals were made on Denmark Street and let’s just say the rock stars were taken advantage of just like their predecessors. Ray Davies wrote all about it in the song “Denmark Street” from Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround. Bernie Taupin also wrote about Denmark Street in the Elton John song “Bitter Fingers”.

Denmark Street is more than rock and pop music, you could also find jingles and library music there too. For the latter, look no further than KPM, a company founded almost 200 years ago whose music library has been used in so many films and TV shows and has even been sampled by rappers. Not only that, but KPM in house songwriters Martin and Coulter wrote the Eurovision winning song “Puppet on a String” for Sandie Shaw. Those two would go on to write songs for The Bay City Rollers. 

We can’t have music without musical instruments and aspiring musicians and rock stars alike would shop for instruments and equipment at the shops on Denmark Street like Musical Exchange and Top Gear. Even keyboard player Rod Argent started his own music store, but he was bought out by Cliff Cooper, the man who designed the iconic Orange Amplifier, Argents became Argent Sheet Music, which sold sheet music and classical instruments.

The world of classic rock is diverse and on Denmark Street there was a clash between Hipgnosis, who worked with prog rock bands, and the Sex Pistols, who were then youngsters who shook up the rock and roll scene with their punk sound – short lived band though. The Sex Pistols saw Hipgnosis as being part of the old guard. One day in 1975, Hipgnosis were minding their own business and then the Sex Pistols moved in next door, where their rehearsal space was – that space was previously used by Badfinger. As the famous story goes, Johnny Rotten was wearing an “I hate Pink Floyd” shirt – so edgy! On Denmark Street, the Sex Pistols did photoshoot with Bob Gruen there and recorded demos. After the Sex Pistols broke up, that rehearsal space was used by Bananarama and Bronski Beat.

True crime aficionados will find some interesting true crime stories at the Tin Pan Alley Club and the A&R Club: the killing of Alfredo Zomparelli was allegedly plotted at the A&R Club after Zomparaelli spent four years in jail for stabbing and killing Ronnie Knight’s brother – Ronnie Knight wanted revenge and he got it, the worst mass murder happened at 18 Denmark Place when a petty criminal John Thompson drank at one of the unlicensed bars there and felt like he was overcharged and fought with the bartender, he was thrown out of the club and to get revenge he filled a bucket with petrol and poured it through the letterbox in the front door, lit a piece of paper on fire and put it in the letterbox, the fire spread rapidly, the whole place caught on fire and 37 people died – it was the worst mass murder in British history, and serial killer Dennis Nilsen worked at a Jobcentre on Denmark Street. In general, there was some seedy gangster stuff going on there and drug dealing. As someone who’s working on a true crime book, chapter 8 was really interesting for me.

In the 90s, Acid Jazz Records set up shop on Denmark Street, after a bunch of record labels left. They leaned into nostalgia and history and soon enough, there was a regeneration and more people set up shop there like the bookshop Helter Skelter and the famous 12 Bar Club.

Of course, all things come to an end and that’s not surprising when you read about big cities like London and New York. A lot of famous, iconic, historic places are now closed and Denmark Street is no exception. Because of Crossrail (the Elizabeth Line) and wealthy developers wanting to redevelop the area, shops and venues shut down, including the famous 12 Bar Club. With redevelopment comes higher rents and the loss of character because small businesses can’t afford the rent. As you can expect, people protested and petitioned in response, but Outernet still opened in 2022: very modern, high-tech and shiny, but where’s the character and history? There’s a fancy hotel called Chateau Denmark, but who can afford that? For me, it looks like “We have Times Square at home”. A very corporate look. At least there are still some guitar stores on Denmark Street and some designated busking points, but times have changed and as so many musicians I’ve spoken to have said, the money isn’t in albums anymore, physical media is dying, and streaming pays peanuts (if anything). So you depend on touring, licensing, and merch to make money.

In this book you really get a feel for how small the world of British popular music is and you can see how London and its music history evolved over the years. Everyone really bumped into everyone on Denmark Street. You also read a lot about how the music business works. There’s a bit of Jewish history in this book too, which I appreciate a lot. It’s a book I’d recommend reading if you have an interest in the music business and that side of the industry and an interest in London history. If you don’t have as much of an interest in those things, this might not be the book for you. It’s less of a rock and roll book and more of a history book. My one critique is I wish the book was better organised with different sections within the chapters and footnotes at the end of each chapter instead of at the end of the book, would make it easier to read – then again that’s just my personal taste. 

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