Tag Archives: 1964

Little Richard

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Little Richard Oasis Club 014 copy.jpg

Just a few days on from bemoaning the death of Millie, a proper pop star, than another of the acts Brian Smith photographed in the Sixties passes away, this time a proper rock and roll trailblazer, Little Richard.  Brian was lucky enough to catch a performance at one of Manchester’s most famous venues of the time, The Oasis Club, in 1964.  Just seeing his pictures makes you jealous, as Richard seems in amazing form while the crowd are in awe judging by some of their expressions. Local group The Dakotas got to back him, all under the shadow of a huge Beatles mural decorating the back of the stage.  Which is a tad ironic given how much they owed to Richard amongst others!  Brian also caught the filming of Little Richard by Granada TV for one of their highly regarded pop specials of the time.

This great shot from the Oasis shows Little Richard working the crowd at the height of his set, and would have made the final selection for the book of Brian’s pics we’re wrapping up – except some of the others are even better!

Richard leaves a musical legacy only a few could equal even back in the Sixties, but his contributions to rock music’s development are unlikely ever to be surpassed in the future.

Millie

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A real shame to hear today of Millie’s death at the age of 73.  Our previous post on this site was to talk about working on photographs of her for Brian’s Blues photo book, and how it was so hard to pick the best.  So here is another of the shots which didn’t make the final selection to remember her by; stood beaming for Brian’s camera at the Twisted Wheel Club in May 1964.  The band are rocking away in the shadows on the left of the scene, but it’s her irrepressible grin which makes the shot.  She would even leave the band to get on with it while she signed autographs mid-set… a proper star.

Millie.jpg

Millie at the Twisted Wheel

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Millie in Twisted Wheel office 1964.jpg

Our designer was working on the Millie Small photographs for the Boom Boom Blues Photo book the other day (and researching her backing group). As he has a home office anyway, the self isolating issue has not been too hard a chore so far. “I love little more than digging through old photographs, who needs the real world! These are some of my favourites from Brian Smith’s book. Millie was a real natural anyway but seems to have hit it off with Brian, who was taking the photos up in the legendary Twisted Wheel club offices. He and Roger Eagle, who was the resident DJ there, were given the rather nice job of looking after Millie for the afternoon. It was probably a bit risky trying to walk around Manchester given that her hit single was so massive, so they passed away the time until the show just taking a few pictures and chatting. I bet a few of us would love to rifle through all the paper ephemera on the shelves too, there looks to be piles of tickets for future gigs in one corner.
During the show itself Brian tried to take a few more shots, but the teenage crowd were just going mad, you can hardly see Millie’s band and she was signing album covers during the set itself!
All the photos have a certain amount of dust and marks on them after 56 years but they have cleaned up nicely for the book. As this one isn’t in, it has not had any treatment!”
We’ve got the best of the photos in the forthcoming book which we’re pushing on with, but thought we’d show this one which hasn’t made the final edit as it is so full of life. You can read more about the book on the site.  There is a post about the book’s cover below.
Obviously the current health crisis has thrown all our plans in the air as it has everybody, so we aim to crack on with projects where we can do so safely and then hopefully pick up the pieces later.