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Liverpool — page 8

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Coverage, page 8

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Even better than the Real Thing? The overlooked Black music scene of 1970s Liverpool

Despite the city’s backdrop of deprivation and racism, vibrant nightclubs and daring artists thrived – but after No 1 success for the Real Thing, why was the scene ignored? Months before the Real Thing’s You to Me Are Everything became a UK No 1 hit in 1976, lead singer Chris Amoo took the unreleased song to the Timepiece, a nightclub devoted to Black music tucked in between bars on Liverpool’s Fleet Street. His DJ friend Les Spaine stuck it on, and the empty dancefloor “just filled up, and nobody, not one person in that place, had heard the song before”, Amoo says with pride on a call from his home on the outskirts of Liverpool. “That’s when me and Les looked at each other and thought: you’ve got something there, brother.” The track’s symphonic majesty and romantic vocals captured the hearts of millions, and it peaked in the charts during 1976’s summer heatwave. Fifty years later, Amoo is on tour with his fellow bandmate Dave Smith in celebration of its anniversary. But the Real Thing were just the most high-profile group from an underground funk and R&B scene which emerged in 1970s Liverpool, upheld by a generation, predominately from the Toxteth area south of the city centre, that embraced Black American culture. Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Claudia Efemini9 Sept

Here in Liverpool, buses are back under public control – and that’s great for the only people who really matter | Steve Rotheram

For decades we were told that privatisation would deliver better services. The experience of millions of passengers tells a different story Steve Rotheram is mayor of the Liverpool city region One of the best-known scenes from the TV series The Inbetweeners is the four angst-ridden teenage characters shouting abuse at people queueing at a bus stop. Only losers take the bus, is the point – except they use a much ruder word. There’s also a statement, misattributed to Margaret Thatcher, that any man over the age of 26 using a bus was a loser. This idea is deeply ingrained. But when I was an MP it became obvious that there wasn’t the same stigma attached to jumping on the bus in London as there often was in other big cities. It often wound me up that the rest of the country was expected to accept a suboptimal public transport system – so much so that it could be joked that only losers would use it – while London retained its excellent bus service, which it ran under public control. Steve Rotheram is mayor of the Liverpool city region Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Steve Rotheram8 Sept

Here in Liverpool, buses are back under public control – and that’s great for the only people who really matter | Steve Rotheram

For decades we were told that privatisation would deliver better services. The experience of millions of passengers tells a different story Steve Rotheram is mayor of the Liverpool city region One of the best-known scenes from the TV series The Inbetweeners is the four angst-ridden teenage characters shouting abuse at people queueing at a bus stop. Only losers take the bus, is the point – except they use a much ruder word. There’s also a statement, misattributed to Margaret Thatcher, that any man over the age of 26 using a bus was a loser. This idea is deeply ingrained. But when I was an MP it became obvious that there wasn’t the same stigma attached to jumping on the bus in London as there often was in other big cities. It often wound me up that the rest of the country was expected to accept a suboptimal public transport system – so much so that it could be joked that only losers would use it – while London retained its excellent bus service, which it ran under public control. Steve Rotheram is mayor of the Liverpool city region Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Steve Rotheram8 Sept