Library Rock's Backpages

The Rolling Stones at the Ricky-Tick, January 1963

John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages, April 2009

THE FIRST TIME I hear Cyril Davies blow his harmonica is January 1963 at Leo's Jazz Club in Windsor. As I approach, shoulders hunched against the cold, I watch billows of cigarette smoke, lit pink and yellow by the lights inside, spill from an open door, before the thin, chill evening air is split by an inhuman scream, a siren wail that rises a tone, then subsides.

Total word count of piece: 1340

Subscribe

Becoming a member is easy. Membership gives you access to all the thousands of articles in the library.

Click here to go to Subscribe page.

Click here for academic and other group subscriptions.