There's No Business, Like Seventies Show Business

Had a visit to the local 'Unseen 1963' exhibition recently, possibly the most historically-boggling photography collection I've ever seen. Piley's got all the info on it, but in essence, 'Unseen 1963' is over fifty candid, posed and offstage shots of sixties Pop Stars snapped at Southend's Odeon cinema. A mixture of dead-legends and heavy-hitters including The Beatles, the Stones, Cliff, Bo Diddley, Roy Orbison, the Everlys and The Kinks all caught backstage or meeting and greeting local competition winners in our very own Southend cinema .

One of the faces, I recognized was Samantha Jones. Originally one of The Veronons Girls, a group orbiting in shadow of The Beatles early career. Samantha eventually went solo, becoming something of a hit with the Lowlanders in Belgium, the Netherlands and winning the Knokke-Heist music festival. During the seventies she settled into the showbiz circuit of clubs, cruises and occasional TV appearances.

So what does she sound like? Well there's two sides of Samantha on offer today

A cheeky hotpants, Bakers Boy hat and suede boots sounding slinky piece of pop-funk. The sort of tune you'd get during a disco scene in Please Sir

Samantha Jones - Today Without You



And a belting evening-dress and show-closer 'Handbags and Gladrags' type soul ballad

Samantha Jones - Do I Still Figure In Your Life



Morecambe & Wise


Wheeltappers & Shunters (it's well worth watching this clip to the close, for the 'all together now' sing-a-long of Show Me The Way To Go Home)



That's Samantha, sat on Macca's lap..

Punkarama

Following on from my last Punk themed post here’s a couple more leopard skin and safety pin links

I found a great set of Punk pics while browsing Flickr recently.

There’s loads of memorabilia and some fantastically candid home photos of the Bromley Contingent, Chrissie Hynde, Judy Nylon and others taken by Simon Barker (legendary for always wearing an Anarchy shirt) around 76/77. After a bit of research it turns out these photos and more appear in a 9 part Summer of Hate feature which is here at 3AM (you have to browse parts 1 – 9 via page 9)


And on a more local level, another highly recommended website is Southend Punk – You don’t have to have been a punk or even lived in Southend to enjoy this site. It’s such a great document of what was happening in one area of Britain and all over the UK before, during and after the Punk big bang – I guarantee that if you’ve got any sort of interest in the late 70’s early 80’s Punk & New Wave period - Southend Punk will up your High Street.

You could even check out some of my photos of The Damned, and Lords of the New Church live at Crocs in 1983 at Southend Punk – Or have a peep at my Punk Top 50 which appears in the playlist section, while you're there.