The Cat's Whisker was a coffee bar situated at 1 Kingly Street, Soho, London, during the mid-late 1950s. It offered London youngsters Spanish dancing, live rock 'n roll, and skiffle. [1]
It saw the invention of a new style of 'dancing' known as hand-jive, dancing using hand gestures only as there was no space to maneuver in the crowded basement. [2] The venue was closed in 1958, owing to overcrowding.
The Cat's Whisker coffee bar was started by entrepreneur Peter Evans, and was one of the first to have a jukebox. It was located in the middle of Soho at the corner of Kingly Street and Beak Street, between Carnaby Street and Regent Street, around the corner from the toy store Hamleys. It attracted large crowds, including ice skating champions, international rugby players, journalists and students, for espresso (priced at a shilling per cup) and music. [3] The venue was situated in the heart of theatreland, and catered for diners before or after the theatre.
In 1956, Evans hired Hank Huffner [4] to refurbish the bar's cellar as an exclusive 'live' venue. The L-shaped cellar had primitive paintings of cats chasing mice on the walls and six stone cats as light-sources round the walls. The basement was exclusive, there being no indication of its existence on the ground floor.
At first, the cellar had the feel of "Hernando's Hideaway", with regular performances from guitarist Jose Feller and dancer Carmen Ballisteras, formerly with the Ballet Espagnol de Pilar Lopez.
Together with The 2i's Coffee Bar, The Cat's Whisker [5] later spearheaded the nascent pop scene, with appearances by 'before-they-were-famous' musicians like Cliff Richard, Lonnie Donegan, Terry Dene, Tommy Steele, guitarist Barry Warren, the Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group [1] and other artists who dropped by to unwind after working the nearby nightspots Churchill's, the Bag O'Nails, Coconut Grove, Cabaret and Eve. Like Feller and Ballisteras, the musicians were generally "paid with coffee and Cokes". [6] The place was reputed to be the largest seller of Coca-Cola in Britain at the time.[ citation needed ]
Freelance photographer Ken Russell, [7] in his pre-film director days, captured the 'energy and excitement' of this night life in Soho for Picture Post and these atmospheric images resurfaced in the Soho Nights exhibition by The Photographers' Gallery, London, December 2008 – February 2009. Russell recalls: "I remember the atmosphere was very jolly. So I made a number of visits to the Cat's Whisker. Cliff Richard used to appear there. I used to join in the hand-jiving." [8]
When the police closed down The Cat's Whisker because of overcrowding in 1958, Evans opened the first of the Angus Steak Houses at this venue, before later starting the London-based David Hicks–decorated restaurant chain that bore his own name, Peter Evans Eating Houses, [9] and the upmarket Raffles night club in King's Road, Chelsea. [10]
As of 2009, The Cat's Whisker had been replaced by the Korean restaurant Myung Ga.
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz. generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, it became extremely popular in the UK in the 1950s, where it was played by such artists as Lonnie Donegan, The Vipers Skiffle Group, Ken Colyer, and Chas McDevitt. Skiffle was a major part of the early careers of some musicians who later became prominent jazz, pop, blues, folk, and rock performers, The Beatles and Rory Gallagher amongst them. It has been seen as a critical stepping stone to the second British folk revival, the British blues boom, and the British Invasion of American popular music.
Sir Thomas Hicks,, known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star. After being discovered at the 2i's Coffee Bar, he recorded a string of hit singles including "Rock with the Caveman" (1956) and the chart-topper "Singing the Blues" (1957). Steele's rise to fame was dramatised in The Tommy Steele Story (1957), the soundtrack of which was the first British album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. He starred in further musical films including The Duke Wore Jeans (1958) and Tommy the Toreador (1959), the latter spawning the hit "Little White Bull".
Old Compton Street is a road that runs east–west through Soho in the West End of London.
The hand jive is a dance particularly associated with music of the 1950s, rhythm and blues in particular. It involves a complicated pattern of hand moves and claps at various parts of the body, following and/or imitating the percussion instruments. It resembles a highly elaborate version of pat-a-cake. Hand moves include thigh slapping, crossing the wrists, fist pounding, hand clapping, and hitch hike moves.
Brian Locking was an English musician and songwriter known for his brief tenure as bassist with The Wildcats in 1956 and The Shadows, between 1962 and 1963. During his time with the Shadows he appeared with Cliff Richard in the musical film Summer Holiday. Locking also toured as a session player with numerous artists including rock stars Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and Joe Brown, as well as Conway Twitty and Brenda Lee.
Gerrard Street is a street in the West End of London, in the Chinatown area.
The 2i's Coffee Bar was a coffeehouse at 59 Old Compton Street in Soho, London, that was open from 1956 to 1970. It played a formative role in the emergence of Britain's skiffle and rock and roll music culture in the late 1950s, and several major stars including Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard were first discovered performing there.
Les Cousins was a folk and blues club in the basement of a restaurant in Greek Street, in the Soho district of London, England. It was most prominent during the British folk music revival of the mid-1960s and was known as a venue where musicians of the era met and learnt from each other. As such, it was influential in the careers of, for example, Jackson C. Frank, Al Stewart, Marc Brierley, Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny, John Martyn, Alexis Korner, The Strawbs, Roy Harper, The Young Tradition and Paul Simon. Several albums were recorded there.
The Bag O'Nails was a live music club and meeting place for musicians in the 1960s and situated at 9 Kingly Street, Soho, London, England.
Charles James McDevitt is a Scottish musician, one of the leading lights of the skiffle genre which was highly influential and popular in the United Kingdom in the mid-to-late 1950s.
The Vipers Skiffle Group – later known simply as The Vipers – were one of the leading British groups during the skiffle period of the mid to late 1950s, and were important in the careers of radio and television presenter Wally Whyton, coffee bar manager Johnny Martyn, wire salesman Jean Van den Bosch, instrument repairer Tony Tolhurst, journalist John Pilgrim, record producer George Martin, and several members of The Shadows.
The Casbah Coffee Club, officially Casbah Club, was a rock and roll music venue in the West Derby area of Liverpool, England, that operated from 1959 to 1962. Started by Mona Best, mother of early Beatles drummer, Pete Best, in the cellar of the family home, the Casbah was planned as a members-only club for her sons Pete and Rory and their friends, to meet and listen to the popular music of the day. Mona came up with the idea of the club after watching a TV report about The 2i's Coffee Bar in London's Soho where several singers had been discovered.
A nightclub is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
"Tom Hark" is an instrumental South African kwela song from the 1950s, believed to have been composed by Jack Lerole. The song was arranged for penny whistle and first recorded by Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes—a South African band formed by pennywhistlers Jack and his brother Elias Lerole—and released in 1956. It was later released in the UK after it was used as a theme on a TV series and it reached number 2 on the UK chart in 1958.
Peter Evans was a restaurateur. He was described by journalist Linda Blandford, writing in The Observer, 9 March 1975 as a "harbinger who heralded the youth culture with one of Soho's first coffee bars, The Cat's Whisker, where Tommy Steele strummed... Evans also foresaw the coming of increasing spending on dining out with his chain of Aberdeen Angus Steak Houses." and the David Nightingale Hicks - decorated Peter Evans Eating Houses. In short, he tapped in early to the "post-war creative renaissance."
The Partisan Coffee House was a radical venue of the New Left, at 7 Carlisle Street in the Soho district of London. It was established by historian Raphael Samuel in 1958 in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. It closed in 1962, victim of a "business model" that was hospitable to the penniless intellectuals who patronised it, but wholly unrealistic. The building is now utilised as office space.
Paul Lincoln, better known by the ring name Dr. Death, was an Australian professional wrestler and promoter.
The London Blues and Barrelhouse Club ran between 1957 and 1961 at the Round House public house at the junction of Wardour Street and Brewer Street in Soho, London. Established by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner, it hosted many visiting American blues performers and was an important catalyst in developing British blues music, R&B, and ultimately British rock music.
The Liberty Clock is a mechanical clock that was completed in 1925. The clock forms part of, and protrudes from, the three storey archway that spans the northern end of the Kingly Street mall in Soho, Central London. The archway itself is part of the Western end of the Great Marlborough Street Liberty department store. The entire building was a design by Edwin T. Hall and his son Edwin S. Hall in 1922 and is an example of the Tudor revival that was quite fashionable in late nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture.