page_title: Soho
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: Soho / Properties / Music
caption_attribution_description: English: Keith Moon (The Who drummer) 's blue plaque. London Wardour Street W1 Soho
context_page_description: 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.
  The area was developed from farmland by Henry VIII in 1536, when it became a royal park. It became a parish in its own right in the late 17th century, when buildings started to be developed for the upper class, including the laying out of Soho Square in the 1680s. St Anne's Church was established during the late 17th century, and remains a significant local landmark; other churches are the Church of our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory and St Patrick's Church in Soho Square. The aristocracy had mostly moved away by the mid-19th century, when Soho was particularly badly hit by an outbreak of cholera in 1854. For much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation as a base for the sex industry in addition to its night life and its location for the headquarters of leading film companies. Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable gentrification.
context_section_description: The music scene in Soho can be traced back to 1948 and Club Eleven, generally regarded as the first venue where modern jazz, or bebop,  was performed in the UK. It closed in 1950 following a drugs raid. The Harmony Inn was a hang-out for musicians on Archer Street operating during the 1940s and 1950s.
  The Ken Colyer Band's 51 Club, a venue for traditional jazz,  opened on Great Newport Street in 1951. Blues guitarist and harmonica player Cyril Davies and guitarist Bob Watson launched the London Skiffle Centre, London's first skiffle club, on the first floor of the Roundhouse pub on Wardour Street in 1952. It was renamed the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club in the late 1950s, and closed in 1964.
  In the early 1950s, Soho became the centre of the beatnik culture in London. The first coffee bar to open was Moka at No. 29 Frith Street. It was formally opened in 1953 by the film star Gina Lollobrigida, and the frothed coffee produced from stainless steel machines was pioneering in British culture. Le Macabre on Wardour Street, had coffin-shaped tables, fostered beat poetry, jive dance and political debate. The Goings On, in Archer Street, was a Sunday afternoon club organised by the beat poet Pete Brown, active in the mid-1960s. For the rest of the week, it operated as an illegal gambling den. Pink Floyd played at the club at the beginning of their career.
  The 2i's Coffee Bar was one of the first rock clubs in Europe. It initially opened on No. 44 Gerard Street in 1956, but soon moved to its more famous venue of No. 59 Old Compton Street. Soho quickly became the centre of the fledgling rock scene in London. Clubs included the Flamingo Club, a regular gig for Georgie Fame, Ronan O'Rahilly's The Scene, which opened in 1963 and catered for the Mod movement with regular attendees including Steve Marriot and Andrew Loog Oldham, and jazz clubs like Ronnie Scott's, which opened in 1959 at 39 Gerrard Street and moved to 47 Frith Street in 1965.
  Soho's Wardour Street was the home of the Marquee Club, which opened in 1958. In the 1960s, numerous major rock bands played at the venue, including early performances from the Rolling Stones in July 1962 and The Who in late 1964, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, AC/DC and Iron Maiden. Eric Clapton and Brian Jones both lived for a time in Soho, sharing a flat with future rock publicist, Tony Brainsby.
  Trident Studios was based at 17 St Anne's Court, Soho and was a major London recording studio. It was established by Norman and Barry Sheffield in 1968, who wanted expand from the small studio they had above their music shop. It became immediately successful after The Beatles decided to record several tracks on The White Album there, as the facilities were better than Abbey Road studios. Queen were originally managed by the Sheffields, and recorded their first four albums and filmed the video for Bohemian Rhapsody at Trident. Other artists who recorded at Trident include David Bowie, Elton John, Free and Thin Lizzy. It closed as a general-purpose recording studio in 1981, but has since reopened in various guises, including providing sound and mixing services for television.
  Although technically not part of Soho, the adjacent Denmark Street is known for its connections with British popular music, and is nicknamed the British Tin Pan Alley due to its large concentration of shops selling musical instruments. The Sex Pistols lived beneath No. 6 and recorded their first demos there. Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie have all recorded at studios on Denmark Street and Elton John wrote his hit "Your Song" in the street. Led Zeppelin's first rehearsal in 1968 was in a basement studio on Gerrard Street.
caption: A blue plaque at the site of the Marquee Club on Wardour Street, Soho, commemorating Keith Moon's performances there with The Who
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