The Crawdaddy Club Christmas Party

The Crawdaddy Blues Band

In the 1960s West and South London was a hotbed of Rhythm and Blues clubs and one of the most famous of them was The Crawdaddy which was born in The Station Hotel, Richmond in 1963 and passed away in Croydon towards the end of 1965. In between the club hosted shows underneath the rugby stand at Richmond Athletic Ground. During that time many legends of the British RnB and beat scenes played at the club. For a while in 1963 The Rolling Stones were the house band, and were followed by The Yardbirds.

This timeline website has a good outline history with some pictures and audio clip interviews.

A few years ago the club was revived in a function room at the Athletic Ground and on Friday night they had their 2022 Christmas party and I happened to be in London, and at a loose end, so decided to head along. I took the boy.

The band for the night were the Crawdaddy Blues Band which included the drummer from The Others, who had followed The Yardbirds as house band back in the day. They rattled through a fine set of classics “Route 66”, “Got My Mojo Working”, “I Can’t Be Satisfied”, “Sunshine of Your Love”, “I’m Crying” … you get the idea.

BUT this wasn’t even close to how I imagine a 1960s blues club was like, it felt closer to a wedding reception. Now, I understand that the audience was skewing old - Adam (25) was unquestionably the youngest person in the room - even I was probably in the youngest 10% - so putting out chairs was probably advisable - but not in front of the stage and not filling most of the room. The room was too bright - the stage was the corner of a room and not raised at all, and those chairs, all conspired against the night.

The Crawdaddy Club Christmas Party

Despite the band’s valiant efforts (and indeed the efforts of some keen audience members) the place was utterly devoid of atmosphere. So at the end of that first 90 minute set and as the charity auction for the cricket shirt and the Kew Gardens tickets was kicking off Adam and I slipped into the cold night and headed to the warmth of our beds.

I guess it would be impossble to try and recreate that scene but nostalgia is the primary market for music at the moment (you just need to look at the upcoming events at The Whitley Bay Playhouse to see how lacking the current mid-market, mainstream has become), so it’s not a surprise that this neo-Crawdaddy exists, but I had hoped that it would at least try and offer some authenticty beyond the music. Sadly, it didn’t.

I think The Crawdaddy Blues Band in a pub back room for a fiver, with the lights down would be a pretty good night – sadly, in an overlit function room at £15 a ticket it really wasn’t.

Mind you the interviews in the timeline suggest that I’d probably have been disappointed in The Crawdaddy of the 60s too!