Book Review: Marquee by Robert Sellers and Nick Pendleton

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

Summary

You know the saying good things come in small packages? Well that’s a saying that could apply to the famous Marquee Club, a club with a capacity of 600 located in Soho and open for 50 years from 1958 to 2008 that launched so many bands’ careers. Legendary acts like The Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters, The Yardbirds, The Who, Manfred Mann, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, Queen, Status Quo, David Bowie, Rory Gallagher, and Iron Maiden played there. What a variety of bands! A diversity of sound.

The fact that it lasted so long in the first place and was a cool place to see rock bands through the different eras of classic rock is incredible – not every venue can say that. The secret was that the owners were passionate about music and had good business sense – Harold Pendleton was a big fan of jazz music and was trained as an accountant, there was really good marketing and imagery, and the Marquee was more than just a music venue, he ran other companies related to music too – very smart of him to diversify. Not only that, but the audiences were very discerning and passionate about music. They were blunt and not afraid to boo if your music sucked. Musicians who played the Marquee always had to bring their A-game. A great place for musicians to train, if you will. It’s a shame that it’s no longer around and as a millennial I’m sad that I never had the chance to see a rock band in their prime play the Marquee Club. What I’d do to get a time machine! So you can see why there’s a whole book about the Marquee Club.

This book is written by Robert Sellers, who wrote authorised biographies for Oliver Reed, Ernie Wise, and Kenny Everett; and Nick Pendleton, the son of Marquee Club founders Harold and Barbara Pendleton. As you can expect, you’re going to read about the history of this iconic concert venue from its humble beginnings in the 50s: an accountant who moved from the North of England to London taking a chance on jazz music to its success in the classic rock era to its closure during the recession. The book is divided into sections dedicated to a major band that played there, but also within these sections are bands that played there around the same time, but aren’t always associated with them – can be a bit confusing.

The story begins with a 24-year-old Harold Pendleton moving from Lancashire to London for better opportunities. While in London he became friends with future British jazz legend Chris Barber and they bonded over jazz music. One day, Chris Barber told him he’s going to learn to play trombone and he started studying at the Guildhall School of Music, where he met Alexis Korner, one of the founding fathers of British blues. Meanwhile Harold wasn’t going anywhere as a jazz drummer so he decided to get into the business side of things, managing and promoting bands. At that time, jazz musicians were all amateurs and Harold saw a business opportunity. Jazz musicians organised and created the National Jazz Federation and Pendleton got Chris Barber his first professional gigs. In the mid 50s, Pendleton founded the publication Jazz News as a dedicated jazz magazine because the coverage in Melody Maker was good, but he wanted something specialised. One writer for Jazz News got famous as a rock musician later on – that writer was a South African immigrant named Manfred Mann. Besides that, Harold Pendleton organised music festivals like the Beaulieu Jazz Festival and the National Jazz Festival, which later evolved into the Reading Festival, a festival that is still up and running every August bank holiday. Before opening the Marquee Club, he ran Club Creole and the National Jazz Centre, but they were short-lived.

With Chris Barber gaining popularity, he toured the US and met his jazz idols there and that networking helped bring them to the UK. One day, Peter Burman approached him to take over the struggling Marquee Club.

In the early years the Marquee featured both trad and modern jazz and had a lot of American blues and jazz musicians play shows there. In the early 60s they still had trad jazz and modern jazz nights and had Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies’ Blues Incorporated playing there and The Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann, John Mayall, and Eric Clapton loved going to their shows and were inspired to make R&B music of their own.

But with rock and roll taking over, it needed to evolve to keep with the times and stay alive. In May of 1962 they added an R&B night on Thursdays. Even though Harold Pendleton didn’t like The Rolling Stones’ music, he booked The Stones to play their first gig at the Marquee in July 1962. Interestingly enough, the band didn’t see the gig as remarkable and no one really saw it as rock history at the time. Soon enough, more nights were dedicated to R&B and the Marquee called itself the “London headquarters of R&B”. By 1964, trad jazz clubs evolved and switched partially or fully over to R&B.

Manfred Mann started playing shows there in the early 60s and have played more shows at the Marquee than any other rock band: 99 times, if you count Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – a prog rock splinter group Manfred Mann formed in the 70s. However, the individual who played the most gigs at the Marquee was Long John Baldry. The Marquee is also where Manfred Mann were spotted by the producers of Ready Steady Go! and were asked if they could compose the theme song, which ended up being “5-4-3-2-1”. That was an early breakthrough for the band.

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers were another major act associated with the Marquee in the 60s – they played there over 50 times. That band had famous alumni like Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Andy Fraser, and Mick Taylor. The Cyril Davies All-Stars also played there and they had some rock royalty in their lineup including members of The Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Nicky Hopkins, and Long John Baldry. Cyril Davies died at just 31 years old of endocarditis and Long John Baldry took over and renamed the group the Hoochie Coochie Men.

In early 1964, the Yardbirds, managed by Giorgio Gomelsky, started playing there and they recorded their famous live debut album Five Live Yardbirds there. Another band that made history there were The Moody Blues – they filmed the music video for “Go Now” there and the video of them dressing in black, singing in front of a dark background, and only their heads being visible was influential to Queen, who did a similar thing for the Queen II album cover and the “Bohemian Rhapsody” music video.

The Who are another 60s group associated with the Marquee; you might remember seeing a poster with Pete Townshend doing a windmill with the words“Maximum R&B” next to him advertising The Who playing at the Marquee on Tuesdays – and this is what I call accurate advertising. They were also doing the whole street team thing before rappers did it in the 80s and 90s by having fans put up posters and giving them discounted admission to the gig in exchange for their work. The Who always brought the house down, even in their early years – easily they’re one of classic rock’s best live acts. Their residency at the Marquee was a launchpad and Keith Moon said that playing there “was the biggest thing ever for The Who”. Roger Daltrey echoed those sentiments saying that playing the Marquee exponentially increased their fanbase. The Marquee was also where The Who first played “My Generation” live – iconic!

But wait, there’s more 60s music history! The Spencer Davis Group wrote “Gimme Some Lovin’” at the Marquee – that song reached the top 10 in the US and #2 in the UK. If that’s not enough, one of Cream’s first public performances was at the Marquee – if you know their history, you’ll know that Bruce, Baker, and Clapton were all veterans who’d played the Marquee before as part of other groups. You can’t talk about the Marquee without talking about Jimi Hendrix who went from struggling musician in New York City to superstar in London thanks to former Animals bassist Chas Chandler encouraging him to make the trip across the pond. The club was packed, overcrowded, when he first played the Marquee even though he wasn’t super well known at the time – another act that had a long queue were Led Zeppelin in 1968, before they recorded their debut album – when they did a Back to the Clubs tour, tickets for the Marquee gig were coveted, fans camped out for it. From there, more psychedelic and hard rock bands started playing there.

By 1966, the Marquee branched out and had a folk night on Wednesdays. Folk musicians like Sandy Denny, Phil Ochs, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Simon & Garfunkel played there. Soul/ska band Jimmy James and the Vagabonds also frequently played the Marquee.

70s rockers like David Bowie, Elton John, Peter Frampton, and Keith Emerson played at the Marquee as a part of a band early on in their careers with Bowie in The Lower Third, Elton John in Bluesology, Peter Frampton in The Herd (he would later join Humble Pie before going solo), and Keith Emerson in The Nice. Prog rockers Yes played early gigs at the Marquee too. However, one early gig was poorly attended with just 16 people in the audience. From there, other prog rock bands like King Crimson, Caravan, Rare Bird, Van Der Graaf Generator, Genesis, Wishbone Ash, and Atomic Rooster played there. Finally in the 70s, the Marquee got an alcohol license, much to the dismay of neighbouring pubs. Another big change that came at the beginning of the 70s was the addition of DJ sessions on Saturday nights. Whispering Bob Harris would come in sometimes to DJ. 

With rock music getting heavier in the 70s, bands like UFO, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Budgie, Motorhead, The Scorpions, and AC/DC played the Marquee. The 70s was another dynamic decade, just like the 60s, so by the end, punk and new wave bands were playing the Marquee like the Sex Pistols, Stranglers, The Jam, Ultravox, X-Ray Spex, Tom Robinson Band, The Boomtown Rats, Buzzcocks, XTC, Adam and the Ants, Squeeze, and The Police. It was a repetition of history, like at the beginning Harold Pendleton didn’t like rock and roll, but he had to book rock bands to stay relevant, the Marquee had to book punk bands to come in because that was what was hip. The section about punk rock is very much a lightning round section.

The 80s had the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and bands like Iron Maiden, Magnum, Def Leppard, Saxon, and GIrlschool appearing at the Marquee, but if you want something less heavy, bands like Long Tall Shorty, Dexys Midnight Runners, Martha and the Muffins, Duran Duran, and Marillion. The 80s also had a lot of variety and you had Paisley Underground bands and the revival of jangle pop and for those who like the dark side of rock and roll, there was goth.

1988 marked the end of an era with Harold Pendleton selling the Marquee to Billy Gaff. By the 70s he didn’t even really show up much to the Marquee anyway because he didn’t like the crowds and he wanted to walk away from the business anyway. With the building in poor condition from the decades of loud music, Gaff moved the club a few streets down to 105-107 Charing Cross Road, where there used to be a cinema. The venue was bigger and much nicer and they booked some big musicians like Aerosmith, The Black Crowes, Lenny Kravitz, Mötley Crüe, Megadeth, Primus, The Beastie Boys, and Oasis, but some musicians felt it wasn’t the same and felt the vibe was generic. The rights to the Marquee name were sold a few times, but Harold was still involved in other Marquee businesses that weren’t the club and he still had the rights to the logo and name. 

At the end of the book there’s a timeline of Marquee Club history, list of live albums recorded at the Marquee, and a list of musicians who appeared the most at the club.

Final thoughts

Information wise, it’s interesting for fans of jazz, R&B, psychedelic rock, folk rock, prog rock. There’s a little something for everyone with the wide variety of bands talked about in the book. I like that there’s a map in the book showing the locations of all the different clubs and places they talk about in Soho, but I would have also liked to see a floorplan for the Marquee so I could visualise it better. There are a lot of pictures of Marquee Club gig posters and that’s cool to see, what a trip!

There’s not just information on the rock bands that played the Marquee, but also some things about the behind the scenes stuff like how the club was run and other ventures of Harold Pendleton’s like the Reading Festival. With such a long history and so many bands to cover, it’s a long book, but could be worth the read if you love classic rock.

However, my criticism is it doesn’t have a good layout and it’s not the best organised. Like I alluded to at the beginning, there aren’t really chapters per se, but rather sections and there isn’t spacing out between them like in a book that has chapters (like page breaks between them to give some breathing room), so it almost felt like I was reading a series of blog posts and not a book. I think a better way this could have been organised is do chapters by eras or genres and then having individual sections in each chapter for the different bands. But instead there’s a section for a band, but then it also talks about different bands from the same time period that may or may not have a connection to each other. A bit of an erratic read. Lots of great information and fascinating stories, but I wish it was better organised because it made it hard to get through as much as I love classic rock! That said, I’ve definitely learnt a lot about Marquee history from this book. If you’re a classic rock expert, you’ll know a lot of the basic information about the rock bands in this book.

Simply put, a fascinating story of an iconic music venue that was peak 60s London, but it didn’t reach its potential because of the confusing layout and lack of organisation. Still, there were many compelling and captivating stories to be found in it.

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