Blues Dances

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Photographer Barry Weston introduces his exuberant pictures of the Blues Dances held in Greenwich and Woolwich in the eighties,  published for the first time here today.

‘My route into the Blues Dances began in the mid-seventies when I ventured into a newly opened reggae record shop by Plumstead station. The shop was tiny, an end-of-row one-storey triangle barely six foot at its widest.

I was looking for the album King Tubby Meets The Upsetter at Grass Roots of Dub which I had read a review of and, although the owner, Noldie, did not have a copy, he asked if I was in a hurry and then played me some of the latest tunes he had. After selecting a small stack of singles I settled up and Noldie added a final 45 to the bag with the words ‘I think you’ll like this one.’ Sure enough Burn Babylon by Sylford Walker was the best of the bunch and with that I was hooked, returning every free day I had for the rest of the decade.

Through Noldie I met Lloyd ‘Junior’ McQueen and we started to hang out together at the Lord Howick pub in Woolwich. Noldie later arranged a slot DJ-ing at the Howick. Friday to Sunday, with me playing the Friday night and opening the other two nights from early ’78 to late ’79.

In ‘79 Junior started playing the Blues Dance at Guilford Grove in Greenwich. The Blues was run by Ghent & Mary in the basement of their large family house. At that time Blues Dances gave the Black British community a place to hang out and dance to reggae, free from the hassle that so often happened in pubs and clubs at the time, particularly when the National Front was at its most active.

We would leave the Howick on a Saturday night and then start the Blues at around half eleven at night, the dance running through to the early hours when the buses started again. It was a running joke to play the Jah Stitch toast with the lyrics ‘milkman coming in the morning’ just as the electric float and the clinking bottles could be heard before the first hint of dawn.

Junior would play through the the night with support from his brother Danny. I would step up and play a short set to give them a break and a chance to have a plate of Mary’s delicious food. To this day nothing can compare to fried red mullet goatfish at three in the morning with a Red Stripe to wash it down.

In early 1980, after seven years of working, I applied to the London College of Printing Art Foundation course as a mature student. To add to my portfolio I borrowed an Olympus Trip 35, a decent point-and-shoot compact camera, to teach myself the basics of photography. I was also planning on moving across to South London, so wanted to capture what had been a large part of my life over the preceding years.

These photos were taken over three consecutive Saturdays, mostly at the Blues Dance at Guildford Grove. One film roll starts at the Howick with George Thompson at the decks. Some photos show the bus trip between the Howick and the Blues and other pictures were taken at Noldie’s second, far bigger, record shop in 1981.

Between the time the photos were taken in 1980 and 1981, there was the appalling tragedy of the New Cross Fire at a party just half a mile down the road from Guildford Grove. This was movingly documented in Steve McQueen’s three part TV program Uprising about the fire and its consequences. The roots of Black British music sprang from Blues Dances like these, once running in West Indian communities in many cities, which have now largely disappeared.’ – Barry Weston

Photographs copyright © Barry Weston