"Les Cousins: The Soundtrack to Soho's Legendary Folk and Blues Club" Features Paul Simon, Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Al Stewart

BUY NOW FROM AMAZON.COM

"For two-and-a-half years, I had the Friday night show at Bunjies Coffee Bar, and it became a residency for me," Al Stewart remembered in an interview with this author for the recent collection of his U.S. singles. "After a while, I got another residency right around the corner at a club called Les Cousins." The Greek Street venue was a focal point of the London folk scene. Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Alexis Korner, John Renbourn, and a young American named Paul Simon all passed through its doors. Stewart met Bert Jansch there, found a room next door to Simon's, and developed his own history-based lyrical style: "I was a night owl. I had to be, because I was running all-nighters at the Cousins. Well, I had to do something on the nights when I wasn't running the Cousins. I was going to be awake all night anyway, so I started reading history and discovered that I had a knack for it." So creatively fertile was the atmosphere at the club that Cherry Red's Strawberry imprint has recently collected 72 songs on 3 CDs - including Al's "Manuscript" - on the anthology Les Cousins: The Soundtrack of Soho's Legendary Folk and Blues Club. Though these are studio recordings and not live tracks recorded in the club, they collectively tell the story of the sounds that the venue helped to popularize and the artists whom got a major start there.

The basement of 49 Greek Street had previously housed the Skiffle Cellar. When Loukas and Margaret Matheou acquired the lease for the ground floor and basement in 1959, they opened French restaurant The Soho Grill. Its kitchen was placed in the basement, but as there was still room left over, the couple carried over the French theme to open Les Cousins, likely named after Claude Chabrol's 1959 drama. Opening on October 4, 1964, the club initially was a discotheque with live bands. But under the keen eye of the Matheous' son Andy, it transformed into a spot for folk music in April 1965. Crowds packed in to see Bert Jansch, and soon Al Stewart was running the venue's all-nighters. It was unlicensed, so those looking for an alcoholic libation needed to go up the street to the Pillars of Hercules; at Les Cousins, it was all about the music.

There are very few photos of Les Cousins; compiler Ian A. Anderson's comprehensive liner notes indicate that the cigarette smoke in the darkened basement club was so thick, that even professional photographers were deterred. But the music, of course, has survived. Anderson quotes Mike Cooper's observation: "It was the Vatican and Mecca and Jerusalem of the folk scene." He details Jimi Hendrix jamming with Alexis Korner, David Bowie being turned away at the door, and Paul Simon premiering his latest masterwork at four o'clock in the morning.

That spirit is reflected on this 3-CD set, chockablock with distinctively British blues and folk singer-songwriter-guitarists alongside a handful of visiting Americans such as Paul Simon, "Spider" John Koerner, Tom Rush, Tim Hardin, and Dave Van Ronk. Hardin's "If I Were a Carpenter" is one of the most successful songs on this collection, a top ten hit in both the U.S. and U.K. for Bobby Darin and a U.K. top ten for Four Tops, as well.

Bert Jansch naturally opens the set with his 1965 recording of "Running from Home," and his influence is felt throughout on the songs from Simon (his CBS solo recording of "I Am a Rock," later a U.S. top five and U.K. top 20 hit for Simon and Garfunkel), Al Stewart ("Manuscript"), and Donovan ("Sunny Goodge Street"), among others. Yusuf, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, was another regular, growing up not far from the club over his father's Greek restaurant. He performed at the Cousins under the name of Steve Adams, and is represented on this set with "The Tramp" and the wonderfully evocative "Portobello Road." Another high-profile name here is Nick Drake ("Northern Sky," culled from his 1971 album Bryter Later), though the notes point out that he remained largely under-the-radar during his time playing the club. Long John Baldry's "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You" finds the singer in raw mode before his 1967 ballad hit "Let the Heartaches Begin."

Many of the artists who frequented Les Cousins were connected to one another. Sandy Denny was dating Jackson C. Frank who wrote "You Never Wanted Me;" his lone studio LP, Blues Run the Game, was produced by Paul Simon. "Milk and Honey" has been drawn from that album. Beverley Kutner, a.k.a. the single-named Beverley, was Bert Jansch's girlfriend; Simon took her to the U.S. in 1969 to play Monterey Pop. She's heard on "Get the One I Want To," a track from her Deram Records days which remained unreleased for decades. Beverley later married John Martyn, heard on "Fairy Tale Lullaby," though her marriage was far from a fairy tale.

Lesser-known artists are featured, too, including the tremendously-gifted blues singer Jo Ann Kelly ("Moon Going Down"), Odetta-inspired African-American artist Dorris Henderson ("Strange Lullaby," a collaboration with British guitarist John Renbourn), and the male-female duo Dave and Toni Arthur ("A Maiden Came from London Town"), among many others.

The artists here were all confirmed to have played the club via advertisements placed in Melody Maker for their appearances as well as Andy Matheous' diaries. Les Cousins closed in April 1972, by which time it had already been immortalized on the compilation LP 49 Greek Street. (Ironically, the cover photo was of another address!) Today, Club49 Soho fills the space, with music provided not by folksingers, but by DJs and occasional live jazz artists.

Les Cousins is housed in a clamshell case and contains a 36-page booklet with artist photos and detailed, track-by-track annotations. Each disc is housed in its own individual sleeve with track listings and credits. Simon Murphy has remastered at Another Planet Music. This time capsule collection and celebration of the British folk boom is available now at the links below from Cherry Red and Strawberry. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Various Artists, Les Cousins: The Soundtrack of Soho's Legendary Folk and Blues Club (Cherry Red/Strawberry CRJAM3BOX21, 2024) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1