This month’s issue of Uncut magazine has a cover story on David Bowie in his Hunky Dory period. It’s written by regular contributor to the magazine Peter Watts. Pete is also the author of Paradise Road’s Up in Smoke book, about Battersea Power Station. We are proud to announce that in spring 2023 we will be publishing Pete’s next book. This will be a history of Denmark Street, the historical epicentre of London’s music business, former home of music publishers, demo studios, muso hangouts and musical instrument shops. Pete also wrote about the street for Uncut, back in 2014 (a story in which David Bowie also featured) and trailed the feature on his blog, The Great Wen:
I have a smallish piece in the current issue of Uncut about the changes about to strike Denmark Street, known to Londoners as Tin Pan Alley and historically one of the most important streets in London for the music industry. It began as a place where sheet music was sold and soon attracted other aspects of the industry: publishers, managers, songwriters, shops selling instruments, studios. Its importance was such that both NME and Melody Maker started here, while in the 70s it was home to Hipgnosis, the design studio responsible for many of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin’s album covers.
The street’s heyday was the 1960s however, when musicians would shop for guitars in between visiting managers and publishers or recording in one of the studios, Regent Sound or Central Sound. The Rolling Stones and The Kinks came here, so did Donovan and Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Elton John, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. A popular dive was La Giocondo, a cafe/bar in which most members of the nascent R&B revolution visited at some point or other – David Bowie was said to practically live there.
You can read the rest of the piece here.
Check back for more details on the book in the new year.