Giorgio Gomelsky - The Crawdaddy Club

The Crawdaddy Club

Giorgio was certain that the vitality of the genre depended on attracting new young fans, and that attracting young fans depended on involving young musicians. Giorgio believed that residencies were the key to building an audience for the new bands and, in an example of the lateral thinking instilled him in the Switzerland mountain school, hit on the idea of eschewing central London and weekday nights altogether - to become so far removed that Pendleton could have no grounds for complaint. Thus the Richmond Blues Association was formed and he secured a series of Sunday nights at the Station Hotel in Richmond, a suburb of West London. What Giorgio knew, from his earlier be-bop interests, was that the nearby Kingston Art School was a fertile hotbed of musical enthusiasm, and also there already was an established blues club in the basement of the ABC Cafe in nearby Ealing. Another group having dropped out The Rolling Stones were given the first residency. The first night only attracted three people, attendance not being helped by Giorgio, in a typical malapropism, accidentally writing "Rhythm & Bulls" on the advertising sign outside the venue. Nevertheless the talents of the Rolling Stones, and a promotional scheme that gave complimentary admission to any patron that brought two friends, soon led to healthy crowds. Also, in order to liven up the proceedings, he convinced the Stones, whose repertoire was stretched by the demands of two 45-minute sets, to incorporate a 20 minute rave-up version of Bo Diddley's Crawdad as the finale of their show.

In fact Giorgio had taken on much of the responsibility for managing and promoting the Rolling Stones. Looking to get press on the band, he prevailed on The Richmond and Twickenham Times, a conservative local paper owned by TV presenter Richard Dimbleby, to send a reporter to the Station Hotel. Eventually a reporter, Barry Gay, undertook to write an article and visited with a photographer.

Giorgio also considered he could exploit his reputation as a jazz writer and film-maker to generate interest in the band and entice the jazz critics to visit the Sunday Richmond sessions. He announced that he would make a short promotional film of these "illustrious unknowns". The news spread and influential writers - first Norman Jopling, and then Peter Jones - showed up, but no copy resulted. Peter Jones did, however, return bringing his friend Andrew Loog Oldham.

Not having the facilities to film the band live at the club, he took them into the RG Jones recording studio in Wimbledon, one of the few independent studios in London at the time. Two songs were recorded and extra footage shot.

As Giorgio was editing he got a call from Gay, who was writing his article, asking how to name the club. Giorgio, on the spur of the moment, inspired by Do The Crawdad - the high point of The Stones' show, came up with another malapropism "The Crawdaddy".

Somewhat to his surprise a full page feature duly appeared in the Richmond and Twickenham Times. Giorgio showed the article to acquaintance Patrick Doncaster, the music critic of the Daily Mirror, the largest circulation British daily newspaper. Doncaster was persuaded to, in turn, visit the club, and a half-page feature duly appeared in the next day's Mirror. The powers that be at Ind Coope Breweries, owners of the Station Hotel, were aghast at the degenerate behaviour displayed in the article and the club was evicted forthwith.

Almost immediately Giorgio had to return to Switzerland for three weeks as his father had died. His colleague photographer Hamish Grimes went to Pendleton, who provided an introduction to Commander Wheeler, director of the Richmond Athletic Association. They had grounds, just a block away from the Station Hotel, where the National Jazz Festival was held. An arrangement was made for the club to move to a room, almost triple the capacity of the Station Hotel, below the grandstand.