London Music Tours

19/01/2025

Saturday morning with these guys from Maryland in search of Queen & The Beatles for a surprise, bespoke 18th birthday celebration, then Saturday afternoon at the NPG rounded off with a cocktail at Thirteen on Denmark Street. Hope you’re all have a grand weekend

17/01/2025

⚠️Last one for the week… Bob Dylan In 60s London on 26th Jan is now SOLD OUT⚠️
Huge thanks to all who booked - I've opened a cancellations waiting list (here: https://londonmusictours.org/bobdylanlondonwalk/), or you can book for April 13th or June 15th.

17/01/2025

A Complete Unknown ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Yes, I have all of the usual biopic objections that an old fart such as I has about biopics. But small (mostly small) gripes notwithstanding… I absolutely loved A Complete Unknown.

Firstly, the music is dynamite. T.C is as fantastic as all the pre publicity led us to believe. And Ed Norton’s Pete Seeger is a revelation. An uncanny performance. Just as good is Monica Barbaro’s takes-no-crap Joan Baez. The “Sylvie” (supposed to be Suze Rotolo?) character was written so stoic and wet that it made me want to scream. There are tiny clues as to her activism, talents and energy, but they are so scant that you won’t spot them without prior knowledge of Suze Rotolo. The character is fantastically performed by Ellie Fanning, tho. And it was great to hear The Kinks All Day And All Of The Night used in a pivotal scene.
So, yes, all the usual objections, bar this: there’s no valedictory ending. Hurrah! Bob rides off into an uncertain future like only a true pioneer could. He doesn’t know where it ends… he only knows that he was born a long way from where he was supposed to be. As the credits roll, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNary) is also on the verge of an unknowable journey – to the undiscovered country. Very nicely done. Mainstream Hollywood storytelling at its very best.

17/01/2025

A great walk to the pictures today - very excited about A Complete Unknown starring Timotheé Chalamet as Bob Dylan. A speculative, psychogeographical meander around some North London haunts, making musical connections & shadowing Bob in his earliest London days, the winter of 1962/63…

The Roundhouse (Pic 1&2) Bob played here in 2009, performing Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright a song that was new minted when he was here in 1962 & the Roundhouse was just a former railway turning shed & gin distillery. As Bob skates by in frozen ’62, Arnold Wesker will soon establish The Roundhouse as a left wing arts hub & theatre…

Wesker chose Surabaya Johnny by Lotte Lenya as one of his Desert Island Discs - one of Lotte’s albums will appear on the sleeve for Dylan’s 1965 album Brining It All Back Home Pic 3 & 4). Nick Drake will perform here at the Roundhouse in 1967, just a hop, skip and jump from his flat, my next port-of-call…

Now demolished, Nick Drake lived in the garden flat at 112 Haverstock Hill (Pic 5). The producer of all three Nick Drake albums was Joe Boyd, who was the production manager at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 where Dylan played with an electric band… a scene that is sure to feature in A Complete Unknown…

184 Haverstock Hill (pic 6), legendary Dylan location where Bob and genius English folkie Martin Carthy hacked pieces off a piano to build a fire to keep warm on Hogmanay ’62 into ’63. Carthy had met Dylan on his first night in London, 21st December 1962 at The King & Queen Pub, Fitzrovia. Martin invited Dylan to play – his first performance outside of the USA. Carthy taught Dylan Scarborough Fair, which Bob turned into Girls From The North Country.

19 Netherhall Gardens (Pic 7) where Andrew Loog Oldham lived with his mum… the tyro impresario was still a few weeks shy of his 19th birthday when he wangled his way into Dylan manager Albert Grossman’s orbit and came away with a week’s work as Bob’s English publicist at the princely sum of £5.

Three months later Oldham will travel to Richmond from his local train station Finchley & Frognal (Pic 8 ) to discover and launch “those British bad boys The Rolling Stones… Oldham once said he only went because there was direct train. If he’d had to change at Paddington, or some such, he probably wouldn’t have bothered…


19b Hampstead High Street (Pic 9)… Leonard Cohen lodged here in 1959 at Stella Pullman's boarding house. Was it like the Madhouse On Castle Street, the TV play that Dylan was in London to film? “It was under her fierce and compassionate surveillance," he once said, "that I wrote my first novel, The Favourite Game.” He returned to this address for four months from March 1962.

When Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Cohen said it was “Like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain.” Of Cohen, Bob said: “When people talk about Leonard they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius. Even the counterpoint lines, they give a celestial character and melodic lift to every one of his songs.”

And so to the pictures… The Everyman Cinema was once a theatre. 101 years ago Noel Coward premiered The Vortex here. Reviews for A Complete Unknown have been great…
P.S Read K.G Miles & Jackie Lees’ Troubadour Tales for more on “London W1 Revisited”. And join me for my special Bob In 60s London walking tour Sunday 26th.

17/01/2025

A Complete Unknown

16/01/2025

The last word on Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home on the 60th anniversary of its recording (and I'm off to see the movie tomorrow)…

Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home celebrates 60 years in 2025. Adam from London Music Tours takes a listen to one of the most important albums of them all…

16/01/2025

A very enjoyable hour spent in contemplation of ’s glorious guitars at Christie’s auction house. Especially excited to get up close to his Yardburst, with his initials on the fretboard, his primary machine from around 1966 to 1969.
The collection is on view for the next few days and the auction is 22nd January

15/01/2025

OTD 2007 Amy Winehouse's Back to Black hit the No.1 spot in the UK album charts. It will go on to become the 2nd biggest selling album of the 21st Century in the UK.
(Artwork pictured is by JXC and can be found at The Hawley Arms in Camden Town)

15/01/2025

Extra Bob Dylan in 60s London walking tour added to mark the UK release of A Complete Unknown this week. This tour has a 100% ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on the London Walks website and you can book your place here: https://www.walks.com/our-walks/bob-dylan-in-london-2/

15/01/2025

If you're heading to Glasgow this Sunday for The McDades & Cua at Celtic Connections why not add a brilliant music walking tour to your weekend with Glasgow Music City Tours Their excellent Merchant City Trad Trail tour goes at 2pm. Book here:

15/01/2025

Mr Chalamet then dumped the bike right in the middle of the pavement before sauntering off…

Timothée Chalamet has ridden a Lime bike into the London premiere of his latest film, 'A Complete Unknown'.

14/01/2025

60 years ago this very day… Bob Dylan returned to Columbia Studio in NYC, this time with an electric band. By the end of the day half of side one of what will be the Bringing It All Back Home album will be done-and-dusted - including the legendary opener Subterranean Homesick Blues. Tomorrow he will return with the band and blast Maggie's Farm in one take before nailing all of side two on his own before the end of the day. It is an extraordinary three day's work.
Bringing It All Back Home features in the upcoming A Complete Unknown - Bob Dylan in 1960s London tour on 26th January: https://londonmusictours.org/bobdylanlondonwalk/

13/01/2025

Listening to the unused tracks recorded by OTD in 1965 on the first day of recording for Bringing It All Back Home… Farewell Angelina was soon to be made famous by and Bob’s version can be heard on The Bootleg Series Vol.1-3 (released 1991)… as can the brilliant acoustic take of Subterranean Homesick Blues.
I’ll Keep It With Mine, with Bob accompanying himself on piano, eventually surfaced on 1989’s Biograph box-set.
🎸🎬
I’ve added an extra Dylan walking tour to mark the release of the new Dylan biopic & the start of a big 60th anniversary year for Dylan fans. A Complete Unknown - Bob Dylan in 1960s London tour is on 26th January: https://londonmusictours.org/bobdylanlondonwalk/

13/01/2025

OTD 1965… Bob Dylan began recording Bringing It All Back Home at Columbia Studios in NYC. This monumental transitional album – one side acoustic, the other electric – will became his first Billboard Top 10 LP.
This album takes centre stage in the upcoming A Complete Unknown - Bob Dylan in 1960s London tour on 26th January: https://londonmusictours.org/bobdylanlondonwalk/

12/01/2025

Greatly looking forward to seeing the biopic on Friday… and to leading my special Bob Dylan In 60s London the following weekend on Sunday 26th January at 10:45am
🎬🎸
As usual ahead of my special themed tours I love to immerse myself in the tour soundtrack and this afternoon I’ve been down a big House of the Rising Sun rabbit hole…
This fabled song appears on Bob Dylan’s self-titled debut album (pic 1) in an arrangement by Dave Van Ronk… for which Van Ronk was uncredited. The Animals took the song to the top of the charts all across the globe in 1964… and in 1965 it ended up on ’s debut album.
Marianne crops up on a number of my tours (maybe it’s time she starred in her own tour?) and she’ll make a cameo on the Bob Dylan tour, as will Alan Price of The Animals. We’ll also meet , , and many others.
This tour is one of my favourites as it always attracts engaged & knowledgeable Dylan fans and it’s always great to hear their Dylan stories and opinions. This time I’m looking forward to hearing what they think of the movie.
Book the tour here: https://londonmusictours.org/bobdylanlondonwalk/

10/01/2025

Great group of students from Ohio this morning on the Rock’n’Roll London walk. Such a friendly and savvy bunch

10/01/2025

Thanks to everyone who took the time to review the David Bowie tour last Saturday! Here are a couple of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reviews left on the London Walks website. (Next outing for this tour is 3rd May: https://www.walks.com/our-walks/bowie60s/)