Ike & Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, The Who, Small Faces, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix were among the artists who performed there, writes Neil Anderson, author of ‘Dirty Stop Out’s Guide to 1960s Sheffield’
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00:00 So this is all about the Dirtiest Hop-Outs guide to 1960s Sheffield. So if you were stood here
00:04 in 1964 on a weekend it'd be rammed full of people, kind of teenagers as young as kind of 30,
00:12 couldn't see amazing bands, so this was the site of the iconic Key Mojo Club. Started by Peter and
00:20 Jeff Stringfellow, opened in 1964, brought back bands that went on to conquer the world. Sheffield
00:28 artists, up-and-coming artists, bands from artists from Jimi Hendrix to The Who to Pink Floyd,
00:34 amazing kind of friendships that formed at this club, friendships that have lasted decades and decades.
00:41 So yeah my name's Neil Anderson, I'm the founder of Dirtystopouts.com, we do a series of books
00:52 called the Dirty Stopouts guide which are really a kind of trip back to the kind of decade where
00:57 you came of age, they're kind of books full of memories, photos and they're all about trying to
01:02 make you feel 18 again. So Peter Stringfellow certainly didn't start off as a promoter at all,
01:09 he had a spell in the Merchant Navy, in the steelworks and when he was very young he was a
01:18 projectionist at a cinema, I think it was Attercliffe, and I believe he did provide some of the
01:24 kind of music between the films and I know I've got an iconic shot of him doing the twist way back.
01:29 So I think he'd actually got an inkling of, you know, that there was money to be made in
01:37 promotion. I think he went to a day, Sheffield star who was just kind of rising through the ranks at
01:43 that point, very early 60s, Dave Berry, I think he went to one of his gigs and while everybody was
01:48 like down front dancing, bopping, he was like totting up how many people were in the crowd,
01:53 timesing that by the amount, you know, looking at the ticket sales, look at how much margin
01:56 have we made, I thought I like the idea of this, and he actually started with something called the
02:02 Black Cat Club at something called St Aidan's Hall on City Road, which is still kind of there,
02:08 a church hall, and he decided he was going to launch this night. The first one they got a band
02:16 from, I think it's from Rotherham, anyway they lost, I think it was five, ten pounds, which was a
02:22 heck of a lot of money in that time, then they also realised partway through the night that they
02:27 actually got no music to fill in between acts, so they had to run up to the parents house and drag
02:33 the radiogram down, and I think that was his kind of introduction to DJing. So he lost money on the
02:40 first one, but you know, stuck to his guns, he got in there again, lost money again, and apparently
02:47 his parents were pleading to him to stop this ridiculous, ridiculous idea. Anyway, third time
02:53 lucky, thought he'd go for a kind of tried and tested route, got Dave Berry down to perform,
02:58 really went for it, took a big advert out in the star, made money. He made money, I think he managed
03:05 to pay the debts of the first two, and that kind of set him off on the road, and they started having
03:13 regular, the Black Cat Club at St Aidan's Hall, and a lot of kind of acts kind of through there
03:19 started to make a name for themselves. So that was really when it started, and say they started
03:27 kind of catching acts as they were just started to be on their kind of trajectory. So I think
03:33 probably the gig that made his name in the early days was booking the Beatles. Beatles were, you
03:40 know, in those days you'd be doing all your booking from a phone box, you know, and kind of by
03:47 mail, so there was none of this like quick, you know, kind of WhatsApp message or anything. So you'd
03:52 regularly be booking acts months before the actual performance. Anyway, he booked the Beatles, I think
03:58 it was for, I think it was for St Aidan's Hall, but in the interim they'd really started, you know,
04:06 starting to achieve early success, and by, you know, as the, you know, the tickets were
04:11 absolutely flying out, and he realised they needed to move to a bigger venue, and the only way they
04:17 did it, they hired out a venue in Gleadless, Gleadless area of Sheffield, and it got, the night
04:28 was absolutely crackers. There was like hundreds and hundreds of kids invaded Gleadless, loads of
04:35 them without tickets, it was very, I think there's people climbing through the windows, you name it,
04:39 but, you know, this was the gig, you know, I think they've already more or less had their first number
04:45 one by this, I can't quite remember the point, but they were, you know, getting to be massive.
04:49 So the fact that he managed to put this band on, it was a massive success, loads of media coverage
04:55 that really kind of started to kind of set him on the road to success, and he started obviously to
05:00 liaise with the Beatles, who he went on to be a compere for, and started to get to know their
05:06 manager, Brian Epstein, so he started to really make, you know, kind of partnerships, and it's
05:11 interesting if you see the photos from that venue, he's still kind of got the, still more like got
05:16 the quiff hairstyle, so, you know, he's still, you know, developing his image and stuff, but without
05:21 a doubt, say, the club that really put him on the road to success was the one very nearby, towards
05:29 the site of the King Mojo, which only lasted actually three years, but say, it already kind
05:39 of started to make a name for himself, he could kind of come and respect him on the axe, and he
05:45 was also really starting to make a name for himself as a DJ. He was the guy that would be going down
05:51 to London every week, every two weeks, to get, you know, the really kind of breakthrough sounds that
05:57 were kind of coming, you know, coming through, he'd bring them back to Sheffield to introduce
06:02 them to the audiences up here, and not forgetting, you know, kids would travel from right around the
06:07 region. I've had the privilege of interviewing loads and loads of former club goers from King
06:14 Mojo, people from Leeds and Hull, there was even one guy who used to walk, walk from Mansfield
06:23 every single week to get here and walk back, that, you know, proves the kind of tenacity and
06:29 pulling power of the kind of King Mojo, loads of people I know, you know, go home, they walk
06:34 back up to Parson Cross, so it's got a real, a real kind of pull. So the kinds of acts that they,
06:40 say, caught on their ascendancy, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Wonder played here, you know, was very,
06:47 you know, just starting to, up and coming, Ike and Tina Turner, they, they performed here, say,
06:54 Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Pink Floyd, Eamon Corner, Sheffield acts like Dave Berry, so, you know,
07:05 it really started to get a name to, you know, as the place to kind of catch these, these kind of
07:10 acts, and also it was a real, it was a very fashion conscious club, it was, you know, it
07:18 timed with the, as kind of, the whole kind of mod, modernist kind of image came through, and it all
07:24 came to the Mojo, so it wasn't unusual to have lines of scooters outside, really kind of sharply
07:30 dressed kids, and, you know, really kind of, you know, deft dancers, I know a lot of the King Mojo
07:37 dancers, they were quite, they'd regularly go down to the iconic pop program at that time,
07:43 Ready Steady Go, they readily go down there to dance, and also Peter, he was a, he was a presenter
07:50 on Ready Steady Go, he was the third presenter, he would actually get the audiences warmed up,
07:54 get the acts lined up, so, you know, he was really kind of absolutely in touch with what,
08:00 what, you know, with what was kind of going on at that time, he was also a DJ, I think it was on
08:05 Radio Caroline, so I don't know how on earth he managed to fit it all in, I will obviously say
08:10 he got the backing of his, his brother Jeff, who was working in tandem with, and a lot of his other
08:16 brothers, family, I think it was his mum that used to be on the ticket office at, at kind of King Mojo,
08:23 so, and they were also, both the string fellow Peter and Jeff, they were very strong publicists,
08:30 they were never out of the star, you know, I've spent hours, weeks kind of going through the
08:35 archives over the years, and there was just so, so much, and their, their rival at that point was a
08:41 venue called Esquire, the Esquire Club, and that actually sat above where the Lead Mill is now,
08:48 that was run by a guy called Terry Thornton, also very kind of successful, but he wasn't as much a
08:53 publicist as the string fellow, and where they bought the Beatles, he actually turned them down,
08:59 he didn't think they, you know, they were, they were going to cut it, but, you know,
09:04 but they also, you know, he had some very iconic bands on at the Esquire, and Peter
09:08 was a regular down there, you know, he'd be going down to see what was happening, so it must have
09:13 been a, I think for me, a real kind of magical time to be, you know, I'd have been straight to
09:17 the bloody King Mojo if I was, you know, that time, I don't think I'd have been, I'd probably
09:20 been at both, but, you know, to say you'd be going to a venue like that, it may be,
09:25 you know, it was a teenage venue, there was no alcohol, it was just coffee, soft drinks,
09:30 and they also had all-nighters, you know, that was not uncommon, and the reason they often used
09:35 to do that is because a lot of the artists, they might play two or three shows a night,
09:41 they might play one in Manchester early on, play another one maybe in Leeds, play a very late one
09:46 in Sheffield, so they were kind of crisscrossing the country, so if you had them late, maybe one
09:52 o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, they'd be far cheaper to get, so that's one of the reasons
09:57 they did the all-nighters and kind of worked in the way they did, but say it must have been such
10:03 a kind of buzzing, exciting time, and say the amount of King Mojo goers I've got to know,
10:10 you know, over the years, they just talk about it as the best venue ever, you know, they, you
10:15 suddenly get them onto that subject and they just come alive, the years fall off them, and it used
10:19 to be the same, I had the pleasure of getting to know Peter Stringfellow in later years, and you
10:25 got him onto the, you know, he's probably in his kind of mid-late 70s, and you got him onto King
10:30 Mojo, that era, and the years would just fall, he'd be like an excitable teenager again, it was
10:36 obviously such a pivotal moment, and obviously he went on to conquer the world, you know, with venues
10:43 and, you know, had amazing success, but, you know, so much of it all kind of went back to those,
10:48 you know, early years in Sheffield, in the kind of mid to late 60s. So we have a whole range of
10:56 Dirty Stopouts, we've kind of gone through all the decades in Sheffield, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s,
11:02 1980s and 1990s, we actually have a Dirty Stopouts guide to 1960s Sheffield King Mojo edition,
11:09 and that will give you everything you ever needed to know about King Mojo, rare photos,
11:15 memories, amazing stuff, but say if you want to kind of start off a 10, the Dirty Stopouts guide
11:21 to 1960s Sheffield, you've got King Mojo, you've got the Esquire, you've got the rise of the cabaret
11:27 scene, coffee bars, you name it, if you were around in the 60s you will absolutely love it.
11:32 So we visited the 60s, next week we're going flying into the 1970s, so 1960s teenage clubs,
11:41 spitting sawdust, 1970s we go up market to the biggest nightclub in the whole of Europe,
11:48 Club Fiesta, we're talking glitz, glamour, cabaret on a grand scale.