The Singers Tale – Early days in Music – Roots.

Babylon London Tales, ’60s & ’70s

Above -One of my first TV Shows…Babylon 3rd Band

Below- The Race. my 2nd band at The Marquee.

Pics from Early Days singing at The Marquee Club in Soho. TV dates in Europe, Germany etc. a night in a posh hotel, cars to studios, out in Fancy Restaraunts, meeting the famous, then back to the slums.. it all felt very weird and discombobulating, as if I were transported to a strange and other reality.

Home was W2, between Paddington and North Kensington, at that time, a warren of crumbling houses, divided into flats and rooms, and known as a Slum. But it was home, and most of the community were wonderful..

 

EXTRACT from The Singers Tale

‘In those days, young men and women came to the City, up or down, from small towns and villages, from Scotland, Ireland and Wales, women working as secretaries or in the department stores, young men and women in Banks and City firms, Clerks, Nurses, Mechanics, Teachers, Waiters and washer uppers, students in the University Colleges, Art School, Drama, Dance and Fashion, all with dreams of the gold lurking under foot, love, fame or fortune.

Families came from far away, invited by our Government! Making up the workforce, The West Indies, India… and we all know how that story, and how Governments, before and since, have blood on their hands.

‘In the early 1960s you could rent a room or share a flat in the  peeling white Stucco streets of Kensington, Paddington, Gloucester Road around the Chelsea Squares, Battersea and the leafy reaches of Hammersmith and Fulham. Bed – sits, in ram-shackled houses, basement flats in Queensway or Notting Hill.’ Outside Lavatory, paper thin walls, where landlords hastily divided rooms in order to double the cash.’

 

Into The Promised Land / Nobody’s Fault But Mine (Polydor) 1969
From L Carol Grimes Dave Quincy Dick Cuthall Johnny Goodsall, John Pearson
Ray Bennett Lewis Rich
Very early days as a singer.

Below W2 & W11 in the 1960s

4 comments

  1. Wonderful photographs! What a life story you have to tell Carol. Hope you are going to get major recognition – a large publishing deal, the documentary, the feature film. Such a slice of British history you have documented through word and song. Enjoying very much X

  2. Carol, thank you very much for your story about your early years career. Could you to help me to learn more about Babylon line up? Who is who no Babylon band photo? Thank you, Sasha.

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