This article is about culture and the arts in the city of Birmingham, England. It covers both notable history and notable contemporary activities.
Contents |
Birmingham has had a vibrant and varied musical history in popular pop and rock music, since the 1950s.
Fifties bands such as Billy King and the Nightriders, Pat Wayne and The Deltas and The Dominettes gave rise in the following decade to the Brum Beat era of the early 1960s featuring early progressive rock and bluesbands such as The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, The Fortunes, The Rockin' Berries, The Idle Race, The Moody Blues and The Move (members of the last two going on to form The Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard).
The Brum Beat era of the early 1960s featured early progressive rock and bluesbands such as The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, The Fortunes, The Rockin' Berries, The Idle Race, The Moody Blues, The Uglys and The Move (members of the last two going on to form The Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard).
The city is often cited as the birthplace of heavy metal music[1] in the late 1960s, with Black Sabbath and Judas Priest coming from Birmingham. Robert Plant and John Bonham, later members of Led Zeppelin and being local to the city, played in bands which were part of the Birmingham music scene, they performed and rehearsed frequently in the city. Rob Halford of Judas Priest attributes the band's success to 'Birmingham having that [...] tough, working-class feeling [...] We weren't born with a silver spoon in our mouths. We had to go to work and work really hard. Some people that work in a coal mine or work in the car industry might argue and say, "These guys haven't worked a day in their lives." That's not true. To be in a band – to be in a worldwide, successful band – is incredibly hard work.'[1]
Also in the late 1960s, there were psychedelic rock bands, such as Velvett Fogg a cult British psychedelic rock band. Tony Iommi was a member in mid-1968, but soon left to form Black Sabbath. Their lone eponymous album was released in January 1969, and re-released on CD by Sanctuary Records in 2002. Also Bachdenkel, who Rolling Stone called "Britain's Greatest Unknown Group".
In the 1970s members of The Move and The Uglys formed the Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard. In the 1970s, Birmingham's increasing West Indian population contributed to the popularity of reggae, with Steel Pulse's ground-breaking album Handsworth Revolution being a notable product of the time.
As the 1980s arrived, the Rum Runner nightclub played a significant role in rock music in the city, particularly in the case of New Romantic supergroup Duran Duran. Dexys Midnight Runners, Stephen Duffy, The Au Pairs and The Bureau also emanated from the city's music scene at this time.
Later Musical Youth, UB40, the first truly mixed-race UK dub band, and Pato Banton found commercial success, as did 2 Tone band The Beat who drew their influences from Jamaican ska music.
Political skiffle was, for a short time in the mid-1980s, a notable Birmingham sound - led by bands such as Terry & Gerry.
The hip hop scene dates back to at least 1980, and has produced popular performers like Moorish Delta 7 and Brothers and Sisters.
Later in the 1980s, Grindcore music, a blend of punk and heavy metal, was pioneered in the city by Napalm Death. The Charlatans, Dodgy, Felt, The Lilac Time, and Ocean Colour Scene were other notable rock bands founded in the city and its surrounding area in this period. Pop Will Eat Itself formed in nearby Stourbridge and consisted of Birmingham band members, as did Neds Atomic Dustbin.
House had been played in the City from the mid eighties, DJ's such as Constructive Trio, Rhythm Doctor at the Powerhouse. Rhythm Doctor worked in one of the shops selling a lot of the early house 12"'s, Tempest. Frenchy (Constructive Trio) also worked in a record shop selling house - Summit Records & Tapes as well as being involved in radio. Pretty B Boy (constructive Trio) had his own record shop opposite St Martin's Church. Mixmaster (constructive Trio) was, as his name suggests, a master of the mix, and also worked in radio.
There were places such as 49er's, Roccoco, Willies T Pot, Mojo, Dial B, Salvation..which played a mixture, from funk, jazz, soul through to house via hip hop and all sorts of everything. Bill, Dick used to do 49ers bar and Roccoco, and earlier Anthony's, along with Ean and Aidan, who did Mjo and Willie's T pot. Nathan dj'd at 49er's around this time, playing everything from Prince to House and Balearic.
The city embraced the national acid house scene with Lee Fisher and John Slowy's Hypnosis on a Thursday night at the Hummingbird Carling Academy Birmingham. Followed shortly after by Snapper club at the same venue, which was Jock Lee and John Maher's Friday night, along with Jock and John, DJ's such as Martin & Bear, Pretty Boy B, amongst others. This span off into bank holiday all-dayers with guests including Lee Fisher, Sacha, Carl Cox etc. Although illegal acid house parties had been popping up in Birmingham before, the first proper legal all night acid party/rave was at The Hummingbird also, and was called Biology, which was a London organisation. Acid house nights such as Spectrum took place in Tamworth and at The Hummingbird in Birmingham. Land of Oz at The Dome with Paul Oakenfold and Trevor Fung in 1989 which occurred on a Wednesday night, the same night The Happy Mondays played at The Hummingbird. Pirate stations such as Fresh FM and PCRL help publicize the music and parties, which help expand the scene in Birmingham. West End Bar was a major meeting place before parties, with Steve Wells and Steve Griffiths and was another important venue throughout this period of time. Electribe 101 hit the charts in 1988 with 'talking with myself'.
Besides popular music on the airwaves, Birmingham was also witnessing a huge explosion in 'invisible' music, notably from the Indian sub-continent and also with the popularity of gospel and 'black church' music. Evolving out of the latter musical movement, Birmingham's a cappella quintet Black Voices, established in 1987, was instrumental in creating a niche with their soulful renditions in both the sacred and secular. Black Voices has continued with that tradition up to the present (2010).
Electronic artists include electro dub music creators Rockers Hi-Fi, Higher Intelligence Agency, Big Beat musicians Bentley Rhythm Ace, UK garage/house act The Streets, and Electronica bands Broadcast, Pram, Plone, Surgeon, Add N to X, Electribe 101, Mistys Big Adventure, Editors and Avrocar.
Electroacoustic and experimental music emerged in the city, via ensembles such as BEAST.
The city's cultural diversity also contributed to the blend of bhangra and ragga pioneered by Apache Indian in Handsworth. When hip hop performer Afrika Bambaata visited Britain he inspired new rappers and hip hop DJs including Moorish Delta 7 Elements, Juice Aleem, Roc1, Mad Flow, Creative Habits, Lord Laing, Fraudulent Movements, and DJ Sparra (twice winner of the DMC mixing championships). Brothers and Sisters took place in the 'Coast to Coast' club in the old ATV television studios on Broad Street in the early 1990s. Then came Fungle Junk, held for many years beneath House music club 'Fun'., and bringing The Psychonaughts, Andy Weatherall and the Scratch Perverts to the city.
Successful Birmingham singer/songwriters and musicians include: Joan Armatrading, Steve Gibbons, Mike Kellie (of Spooky Tooth), Blaze Bayley (former vocalist of Wolfsbane and Iron Maiden), Keith Law (of Velvett Fogg & Jardine) Jeff Lynne, Phil Lynott, Carl Palmer (of Emerson, Lake & Palmer), Roy Wood, Jamelia, Kelli Dayton of The Sneaker Pimps, Juice Aleem (from Big Dada Records), Martin Barre (guitarist with Jethro Tull), Nick Mason (of Pink Floyd), Bev Bevan, Ali Campbell, Steve Cradock (guitarist for Ocean Colour Scene and Paul Weller), Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Denny Laine, Fritz Mcintyre (keyboardist of Simply Red), Christine Perfect (of Fleetwood Mac), Robert Plant (born in West Brom and played in Brumbeat bands), Nick Rhodes, Ranking Roger, John Henry Rostill (bass guitarist/composer for The Shadows), Matt Skinner, Dave Swarbrick (of Fairport Convention), John Taylor, Roger Taylor, Ruby Turner, Ted Turner (guitar/vocals, Wishbone Ash), Peter Overend Watts, Steve Winwood and Dave Mason.
Birmingham-based tape recorder company, Bradmatic Ltd helped develop and manufacture the Mellotron. Over the next 15 years, the Mellotron had a major impact on rock music and is a trademark sound of the progressive rock bands.
Many varieties of music from metal to punk and electronic to dance continue to cross-fertilise in the city with acts such as The Bluebeat Arkestra, Bentley Rhythm Ace, The Streets, Rockers Hi-Fi, Editors, Surgeon, Mistys Big Adventure, 51 Breaks, Munchbreak, and Broadcast.
Notable dance music record labels include Network Records (of Altern8 fame), Different Drummer, Urban Dubz Records, Badger Promotions, Jibbering Records, Iron Man, Earko, FHT[2] and Munchbreak Records. Punch Records, in the Custard Factory, run street dance and DJ training courses.
While there is a thriving music scene in the city and a number of rehearsal studios such as Robannas, Rich Bitch and Madhouse (many of which have their own demo recording studios) there are very few working at a professional level. Until Circle Studios opened its 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) facility in 2007, aside from private studios in the hands of UB40 and Ocean Colour Scene and smaller studios such as Artisan Audio, there was no high-end recording studio operating in Birmingham.
Independent shops in the city selling records include Swordfish Records, Tempest Records, Jibbering Records, Punch Records, Old School Daze, Dance Music Finder Records, Three Shades Records and Hard To Find Records, which is the original 'dance music finder' in the UK and now trades as one the largest vinyl record and DJ shops in the world. Summit Records sells mainly reggae and doubles as an Afro-Caribbean barbers.
Birmingham's current music venues - large and small - include Symphony Hall at the ICC, The National Indoor Arena, O2 Academy Birmingham, the National Exhibition Centre, The CBSO Centre, The Glee Club, The Adrian Boult Hall at Birmingham Conservatoire, The Yardbird, mac (Midlands Arts Centre) at Cannon Hill Park, The Custard Factory, the Drum Arts Centre, The Jam House, and pub and bar venues including The Rainbow (Digbeth), The Bull's Head (in the suburb of Moseley), The Cross (Moseley), the Ceol Castle (Moseley), the Hare and Hounds (Kings Heath), Scruffy Murphy's, the Jug of Ale, The Queen's Arms (city centre), a branch of Barfly and the Hibernian. Leftfoot is a soul jazz and funk night that has featured on BBC Radio 1.
Party in the Park is Birmingham's largest annual music festival, at Cannon Hill Park, where up to 30,000 revellers of all ages listen to popular chart music.
The newest music festival that Birmingham has to offer is Gigbeth, first piloted in March 2006 and now annual on the first weekend of November in Digbeth. Gigbeth is a music festival celebrating local independent music from the West Midlands.
Jazz is popular in the city. Many venues support a jazz scene in the city, often promoted by Birmingham Jazz. Jazz musicians associated with the city include Andy Hamilton, Soweto Kinch, Julian Arguelles, Ronnie Ball, Tony Kinsey, Douglas "Dougle" Robinson and King Pleasure and the Biscuit Boys.
The busiest promoter of contemporary jazz in the city is the voluntary organisation Birmingham Jazz, which mounts dozens of concerts every year featuring local, national and international artists in venues such as the CBSO Centre, the mac arts centre, the Glee Club and Symphony Hall. It enjoys the support of the city council and the Arts Council of England and also commissions new works from both local performers and performers of international standing.
The Birmingham Triennial Music Festival took place from 1784–1912 and was considered the grandest of its kind throughout Britain. Music was written for the festival by Mendelssohn, Gounod, Sullivan, Dvořák, Bantock and most notably Elgar, who wrote four of his most famous choral pieces for Birmingham.
Albert William Ketèlbey was born in Alma Street, Aston on 9 August 1875, the son of a teacher at the Vittoria School of Art. Ketèlbey attended the Trinity College of Music, where he beat the runner-up, Gustav Holst, for a musical scholarship.
John Joubert, the distinguished composer of choral works, joined the University of Birmingham's Music Department as Senior Lecturer in 1962, retiring in 1986 to concentrate on his music. During that time he had written the second of his operas and was working on his third, as well as completing a number of orchestral and chamber works. In 1995 the orchestra of Birmingham Composers Forum put on what was only the second UK performance of his Second Symphony, dating from 1970.[2]
The internationally-renowned City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's home venue is Symphony Hall, which in acoustic terms is widely considered to be one of the greatest concert halls of the twentieth century and also hosts concerts by many visiting orchestras.
Other professional orchestras based in the city include the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, a chamber orchestra specialising in modern music with some world premieres; the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, who give concert performances under music director Barry Wordsworth in addition to playing for the Birmingham Royal Ballet; and Ex Cathedra, one of the country's oldest and most respected early-music and Baroque period instrument ensembles.
Birmingham is an important centre for musical education as the home of the UCE Birmingham Conservatoire, founded in 1859. The Royal College of Organists is based in Digbeth. Birmingham City Council appoint the Birmingham City Organist to provide a free series of weekly public organ recitals.
The Birmingham Royal Ballet resides in the city as does the Elmhurst School for Dance, based in Edgbaston, and which claims to be the world's oldest vocational dance school.
Birmingham's professional opera company - the Birmingham Opera Company - specialises in staging innovative performances in unusual venues (in 2005 it performed Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria in a burnt-out ice rink in the Chinese Quarter). Its artistic director, Graham Vick, has also directed at La Scala, Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Royal Opera House in London.
Visiting opera companies such as Opera North and Welsh National Opera perform regularly at the Hippodrome.
Birmingham's other principal classical music venues include The National Indoor Arena (NIA), CBSO Centre, Adrian Boult Hall (ABH) at Birmingham Conservatoire, the Barber Concert Hall at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts and Birmingham Town Hall. Concerts also regularly take place in churches around the city including St Phillips Cathedral, St Paul's in the Jewellery Quarter, St Alban's in Highgate and The Oratory on the Hagley Road.
Many famous literary figures have been associated with Birmingham:
The city also has literary publishers such as Tindal Street Press and hosts The Young Book Reader UK festival, as well as an online literary community called Birmingham Words.
Kenneth Peacock Tynan and David Edgar are possibly Birmingham's most famous members of the theatrical scene. The Birmingham School of Acting trains actors in the city.
There are many theatres in Birmingham. The four largest professional theatres are the Alexandra Theatre ("the Alex"), Birmingham Repertory Theatre ("The Rep"), the Birmingham Hippodrome and the Old Rep. The mac and Drum arts centres, the Crescent Theatre and the Old Joint Stock Theatre also host many professional plays. Sutton Coldfield Town Hall has theatre facilities and hosts numerous amateur productions. The actors in the long-running Radio 4 serial The Archers live in and around Birmingham, where the supposedly rural programme is recorded.
Birmingham also hosts a number of independent and community theatre companies, including Banner Theatre which was founded in the city over thirty years ago. Round midnight ltd produce work for schools, colleges and arts centres as well as film, television and radio. For ten years, Birmingham's Fierce! festival has presented a performance art festival. It has recently begun commissioning new works from British and international performers.
Famous comedians from Birmingham include Sid Field, Tony Hancock, Jasper Carrott and Shazia Mirza. Other leading figures include Jo Enright (Lab Rats, Phoenix Nights, Time Trumpet), Natalie Haynes, James Cook, Weakest Link winner Andy White and Barbara Nice (the creation of actress Janice Connolly). The Glee Club and Birmingham Jongleurs are both prominent comedy venues. The Drum Arts Centre and the mac also host monthly comedy sessions while smaller independent comedy promoters/ venues include The Cheeky Monkey Comedy Club (The Station pub, Kings Heath - and the city's longest running independent comedy club), plus The Laughing Sole (in Strichley) and Retort Cabaret (Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath) with other nights at Old Joint Stock Theatre (city centre), Library Theatre and Alexandra Theatre (Real Deal Comedy).
The Birmingham Comedy Festival was founded in 2001 and runs over 10 days at the beginning of October with a line-up that combines leading TV names with rising talent from Birmingham and the West Midlands. The 2008 festival (Oct 3-12), in association with Wye Valley Brewery and supported by BirminghaMail.net, features Frankie Boyle, Jimmy Carr, Lee Evans, Ken Dodd and Dylan Moran.
David Cox was a famous Birmingham watercolour artist and President of the Associated Artists in Water Colour in 1810.
An "Academy of Arts" was organised in 1814, and an exhibition of paintings took place in Union Passage that year. A School of Design, or "Society of Arts", was started Feb. 7, 1821; Sir Robert Lawley, Bt (the first Lord Wenlock) presenting a valuable collection of casts from Grecian sculpture. The first exhibition was held in 1826, in a building on New Street.
The first Ballot for pictures to be chosen from the Annual Exhibition of Local Artists took place in 1835.
Edward Burne-Jones was born in Birmingham, spent his first twenty years in the city, and later became the president of the Birmingham Society of Artists (which dates from 1826). He strongly influenced the Birmingham Group, which formed the link between late Romanticism in the visual arts and the Birmingham Surrealists who were prominent in the city's arts in the early and mid 20th century.
The Scottish painter William Gear (1915–97) had studied with Fernand Léger in Paris and after World War 2 became the only British member of the Surrealist-influenced COBRA, the most avant-garde movement of the time. Between 1964-75 he was head of the Faculty of Fine Art at Birmingham College of Art and continued to live in the city until his death.
The Birmingham Arts Lab at Gosta Green was an important centre for alternative comic art in the late 1970s; in the 1990s the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery staged a historical retrospective of the work made there.
Victorian photographer Sir Benjamin Stone (1838–1914) lived and worked in Erdington, Birmingham. The Birmingham Central Library now holds the Benjamin Stone Collection. The Victorian "father of art photography", Oscar Gustave Rejlander lived and worked at nearby Wolverhampton, and was a founder member of the Birmingham Photographic Society. The BPS later elected Henry Peach Robinson as a member.
The famous photographer Bill Brandt made an extensive series of photographs for the Bournville Village Trust in Birmingham, between 1939 and 1943. These have been published as the book Homes Fit For Heroes (Dewi Lewis, 2004). The post-war changes in the cityscape, especially the clearance of older housing and the changes to the central markets, were documented by Phyllis Nicklin (1913?-1969).
In late 1979, Derek Bishton (now Consultant Editor for The Daily Telegraph), John Reardon (became Picture Editor of The Observer), and Brian Homer were three community photographers and activists in Hnadsworth, and they facilitated the 'Handsworth Self Portrait' series of self-portraits on the streets of Handsworth, Birmingham. Other notable photographers include Pogus Caesar, his OOM Gallery Archive holds in excess of 14,000 photographic images from 1982–present. Caesar's recent exhibitions include From Jamaica Row - Rebirth of the Bullring, Muzik Kinda Sweet and That Beautiful Thing, his work is represented in Birmingham Central Library.
The city is home to famed fashion photographer Garazi Gardner.
John Baskerville (1706–1775) was a noted type designer, the developer of wove paper, and typographic businessman in fine printing. His Baskerville font is still in wide use today. The Birmingham Guild and School of Handicrafts operated a fine arts small-press, the Press of the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft. From 1895 until 1919 this Press produced books in the Kelmscott Press tradition of the Arts and Crafts Movement. George Kynoch's Kynoch Press (1876–1981) was a Birmingham printing house that substantially contributed to the development of a British typography. The teacher Leonard Jay (1888–1963) made the Birmingham School of Printing a profound influence on a generation of typographers, and set the pattern for printing education worldwide. More recent small-press printers included F.E.Pardoe and David Wishart.[13]
Graffiti (or "spraycan art") culture appeared in the early 1980s, with the area featuring in Channel 4 documentary Bombing. Local artists who use urban Birmingham as their canvas (this is illegal, and regarded by some as vandalism) have included Chu and Goldie. Street art competitions are still regularly held at the Custard Factory.
A variety of contemporary public art is located around the city centre, most of it created by artists from outside the Midlands. The construction of the Bull Ring Shopping Centre included three light wands which were erected at the main entrance, a huge mural on a glass façade located at the entrance facing New Street station and three fountains in St Martin's Square in the shape of cubes, which are illuminated at night in different colours.[14]
Contemporary African Caribbean artists and photographers who have exhibited internationally include Pogus Caesar, Keith Piper and the late Donald Rodney.
There are a variety of other small and private galleries in the city.
From 1997 the city has hosted an annual arts festival ArtsFest during September, where families can enjoy many of the city's arts, for free. It is said to be the largest free arts festival in the UK. In December 2006 the City Council announced that it would no longer hold Artsfest. [6], but it continued in 2008 under the support of Brindley Place, Centro, Kerrang Radio and of course, Birmingham City Council. There are a number of events scheduled for the forthcoming months in Birmingham [7].
|
|||||||