Pub before punk.

In the early seventies when the general public were listening to glam rock and the hippies were in full throttle with prog rock, in certain bars in the west of London there was something else going on. As a reaction to the overblown music of the times certain young men were using a back to the roots formula, to create a music based on rhythmn n blues and early rock and roll, the simplicity of which in many ways paved the way for the punk movement that was to come. In fact many of the leading lights of the punk movement Joe Strummer, Elvis Costello and Ian Drury started off in bands from the pub rock scene, a scene which by 1976 was getting a fair bit of attention due to bands such as Doctor Feelgood with their famous guitarist Wilko Johnson breaking into the charts. Pub rock was simple direct with few solo's and catchy tunes and horn sections, simple pop music in a world which by this time was dominated by gradiose projects and massive ego's, all of which would be washed away by the tidal wave which was punk, and however much pub rock contributed to the birth of punk it too was washed away to be left almost dead by the new wave, either the leading lights were now truly punk themselves or had left the pubs behind. Probably the most talented of all pub rock performers was Graham Parker who with his group the Rumour was one of the first acts to have real commercial success, Parker was an ex mod who after trying hippidom rejected it completely and went back to wearing the striped blazer and tight jeans of his mod days, a sight to see in the flared up London of the seventies. This song "Stick To Me" is the title track from Parker's third album produced by Nick Lowe (producer of Elvis Costello) in 1977, which due to a problem with the magnetic tape had to be rerecorded in a week, giving the record a very direct and raw sound which has served it well over the years. In this track we can hear the talent of Brinsley Schwartz on the guitar, who himself had a well known group "Brinsley Schwartz" in the late sixties and early seventies, as well as that of Martin Belmont who was formerly in the other well known Pub Rock band Ducks Deluxe.

Graham Parker and The Rumour - Stick To Me.

While in London the pub rock movement was a minority movement for a certain few, the same thing was the case in the USA and many comparisons can be made between what was going on in the USA and Britain during this period, while Parker and Costello et all were playing a raw primitive rythmn and blues in the bars of west London, in the coastal towns of New Jersey Bruce Springsteen and his compatriots Southside Johnny and the Ashbury Jukes were doing the same thing. They too rejeted the owerblown pompous music of the times, and tried to play a music deeply influenced by the early rock and roll and doo wop of the late fifties early sixties. The album which broke Springsteen to the general public "Born to Run" (1975) shows clearly this return to the roots of rock, and shares with the english pub rock the use of simple songs, a horn section and a production similar to Phil Spector in his early days. This track "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" shows clearly through the use of the horns the love for the early rock n roll of the fifties, and a comparison is easily made with Parker's track.



Bruce Springsteen - Tenth avenue freeze out.

O.S.