Singing Streets

10/02/2025

The full YouTube video from our trip to Headley Grange last weekend can be found here.

Headley Grange was the venue for some of Led Zeppelin's most iconic recordings.

Built in 1795, and originally used as a workhouse, the band came here in the winter of 1970 to work on what would become 'Led Zeppelin IV'.

Robert Plant wrote most of the lyrics to 'Stairway to Heaven' here in a single day. John Bonham's drumming for 'When the Levee Breaks' was recorded in the hallway, while 'Black Dog' was supposedly named after a black Labrador Retriever who was hanging around during recording.

The band also either composed or recorded parts of 'Led Zeppelin III', 'Houses of the Holy' and 'Physical Graffiti' here.

Jimmy Page revisits Headley Grange in the 2009 documentary 'It Might Get Loud', in which he describes how the drums for 'When the Levee Breaks' were recorded in the cavernous hallway, with its echoing acoustics, and how they ran cables to a recording truck outside..

Bad Company recorded their self-titled debut album here in November 1973. Peter Grant managed both bands at the time and the album was the first release on Zeppelin's Swan Song label.

Genesis spent three months here in 1974, writing and rehearsing 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway', which would prove to be their last record with Peter Gabriel.

Pre-fame Huey Lewis and his band Clover lived here in 1976. Elvis Costello came here to rehearse the songs for his first album for which Clover were the backing band, though Huey wasn't on the recording.

Other bands to have recorded at Headley Grange include Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton, the Pretty Things, and Ian Dury.

In 1982, Yazoo recorded the video for their single 'Don't Go' here, Headley Grange serving as the venue for their recreation of Frankenstein's monster.

The house, which has since been granted Grade II listed status, is now a private residence.

Queen's Roger Taylor did however get to visit in the summer of 2014 with Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Chad Smith, where they made a recording of sampled beats, breaks and loops."

Singing Streets, available for free from the App Store.

Singing Streets visits Headley Grange, the iconic Led Zeppelin recording site.Headley Grange was the venue for some of Led Zeppelin's most iconic recordings....

03/02/2025

Over the weekend, Singing Streets visited the Mapledurham Watermill.

This picturesque watermill, which lies on the Mapledurham Estate, dates back to 1690 and remains the only one on the River Thames still producing stone-ground flour.

The Mill is most famous for being featured on the cover of Black Sabbath's 1970 debut album.

The picture, depicting model Louisa Livingstone in a black cloak, is one of the most famous images in heavy metal.

Livingstone, later told Rolling Stone magazine that it was "freezing cold" when photographer Keith Macmillan took the picture. She said: "I had to get up at about 4 o'clock in the morning. Keith was rushing around with dry ice, throwing it into the water."

The mill has also appeared in the Michael Caine film The 'Eagle Has Landed', and TV shows such as 'Taboo', 'Miss Marple' and 'Midsomer Murders'."

This picturesque watermill, which lies on the Mapledurham Estate, dates back to 1690 and remains the only one on the River Thames still producing stone-groun...

01/02/2025

Today we went to visit some sites outside of London for Singing Streets.

One of our first planned stops had an unexpected sadness, as it was the childhood home of Marianne Faithfull, who sadly passed away on Thursday.

Marianne grew up in Reading and lived at 41 Milman Road with her mother. When researching this location, we found photos of Mick Jagger outside, taken when he used to come pick Marianne up here.

“And I follow, follow, follow
My gypsy faerie queen
We exist, exist, exist
In the country in-between”

31/01/2025

Singing Streets took to the streets of London yesterday, to visit some new locations for our App, as well as returning to a few old favourites, including:

The new plaque outside PWL - The Hit Factory in Borough.

The Princess Louise pub in Holborn, which used to host the Ballads & Blues Folk Club, where Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger were regular performers and Bob Dylan played what is often referred to as his first full length UK concert.

A visit to the much changed Denmark Street, around the corner from where Peter Gabriel took the cover photo for his second solo album, after which a pint of Guinness was very much called for at The Toucan Pub. The cellar of The Toucan used to be the Knuckles Club. Owned by Viv Prince, the ex-drummer of The Pretty Things, the Jimi Hendrix Experience used it as a rehearsal space in 1966. More recently, the pub was heavily featured in the film ‘Last Night in Soho’.

Singing Streets, available for download from the App Store for free, has thousands of music related locations to discover in London, New York, and beyond!

http://apps.apple.com/ie/app/singing-streets/id1487395261

18/01/2025

Our latest release of Singing Streets has over 300 music locations in Manchester to discover, many of which naturally relate to Oasis.

Check out a few of these in our video of Oasis Sites in Manchester, now released on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/PxBpIqZCMwE

06/01/2025

To mark the release of Singing Streets Manchester, we are honouring one of our favourite locations.

This seemingly obscure section of the Fallowfield Loop path, just off Alexandra South Station, has a surprisingly important role in the history of music.

Alexandra Park railway station (renamed ‘Wilbraham Road Station’ in 1923) opened here in the 1890’s, as part of a 7-mile loop line that ran south of Manchester.

However, the introduction of electric trams and the availability of better options for local commuters in and out of Manchester reduced the station’s popularity and, in 1958, it was closed to passenger services.

On 7 May 1964, the disused station buildings was the location for Granada Television’s ‘Blues and Gospel Train’ TV special. The special, for which the old station was transformed into a train station in the style of the American South, featured Muddy Waters and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, as well as Cousin Joe Pleasant, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Otis Spann, and Reverend Gary Davis.

All of the musicians were in England as part of the 1964 American Folk Blues and Gospel Festival tour of Europe.

The programme featured Muddy Waters singing ‘Blow Wind Blow’ as a special train brought the show’s audience to the platform, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe singing ‘Didn’t It Rain’ as the heavens opened around her.

The TV broadcast that August was watched by about ten million viewers and is said to have influenced The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, and many more. Footage can be found on YouTube, albeit with some inaccurate commentary from the BBC (see link below).

The railway line remained active, initially for express passenger trains until 1969, and then for freight trains through to 1988. The train tracks were then lifted and the route became derelict until the Fallowfield Loop path, an off-road cycle path, pedestrian and horse riding route, was created along the footprint in 2001.

Download Singing Streets for over five thousand music related locations in London, New York, Dublin, Liverpool, Belfast and now Manchester!

Free from the App Store: http://apps.apple.com/ie/app/singing-streets/id1487395261

03/01/2025

We are delighted to announce that the new release of Singing Streets is now in the App Store.

We now feature Manchester for the first time, with over 300 hundred music related locations in the Greater Manchester area.

Here is a video from the legendary Strawberry Studios in Stockport, 10cc's studio where everyone from Paul McCartney to Joy Division, The Smiths and The Stone Roses recorded.

Download Singing Streets for over five thousand music related locations in London, New York, Dublin, Liverpool, Belfast and now Manchester!

Strawberry Studios first opened in 1967 above a record shop in Stockport town centre.After investment from a couple of local musicians, Eric Stewart (who nam...

03/12/2024

Singing Streets Manchester, coming later this month!

We have been hard at work on our next release, which will include over three hundred music related locations to discover around Manchester, including many relating to Joy Division / New Order, The Smiths, The Fall, Oasis, John Cooper Clarke, and the other greats of the Manchester music scene.

11/11/2024

A video exploring the origins of the Blues with guest John Jeremiah Sullivan.

Accompanied by award-winning author and historian John Jeremiah Sullivan, Singing Streets travels to Ohio to visit one of the original blues locations: the ...

19/10/2024

Our latest video is now available, from when we recently visited the Savoy Steps, site of the recording of Bob Dylan's famous video for Subterranean Homesick Blues.

The alley was behind The Savoy Hotel, where Bob was staying at the time, and the clip was used in the opening of D. A. Pennebaker's film about Dylan's 1965 tour of England 'Dont Look Back'.

Hundreds of Dylan locations can be found in the Singing Streets app, between London, New York and beyond!

Singing Streets visits the Savoy Steps, the location where Bob Dylan shot the famous 'cue card' video for his 1965 single 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'. It ...

06/10/2024

We recently paid a visit to the location of the location of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album cover.

It's tucked down an unassuming alley off Regent Street in London and is one of the most iconic locations in Singing Streets.

Download our FREE Music Tourist App from the App Store and find it for yourself.

Singing Streets visits the location where the photographs of David Bowie that were used on the front and back cover of his classic 1972 album 'The Rise and F...

11/09/2024

Musical Londoners!

Singing Streets' co-founder Worth Wagers, along with Meetup legend Kevin Clay, will be giving a musical walking tour of Mayfair on Sunday 10 November!

Reserve your spot on the tour, using the link in the comments, to discover the roots of The Police, the home that all four of The Beatles shared, David Bowie's most iconic album cover, where The Spice Girls were formed, Jimi Hendrix sites, and much, much more.

We'll have drinks at the end to cap it off, who's in?

30/07/2024

Happy 66th Birthday to Kate Bush!

While still a teenager, the singer moved to Wickham Road in Brockley, living in the middle flat with one brother above her and another below!

She later moved to Wuthering Heights, in Eltham, where she lived for ~18 years.

Find these and dozens of other sites among the thousands of music related locations in Singing Streets, available for free from the App Store: http://apps.apple.com/ie/app/singing-streets/id1487395261

07/07/2024

A very Happy Birthday to Ringo Starr!

The Beatles drummer, leader of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, and all round good guy, was born Richard Starkey in an upstairs bedroom at 9 Madryn Street on 7 July 1940.

When he was a child, the Liverpool neighborhood was repeatedly hit with bombs during World War II.

Ringo’s parents, Richard and Elsie Starkey, rented the house for 10 shillings a week before moving to a smaller, less expensive house in nearby Admiral Grove around which time Ringo's parents separated.

His grandparents, with whom he would often stay, lived down the street at number #59.

Having sat derelict, the house was saved from demolition that had been planned by Liverpool City Council in 2012 and instead refurbished and sold.

Located a stone’s throw away was The Empress Public House, which was the family’s local pub. A photograph of The Empress pub was used for the Ringo Starr's first solo record, 'Sentimental Journey'. An album of standards, it was released on 27 March 1970.

Ringo’s mother Elsie worked here and, according to The Beatles Anthology book, he first heard the songs he recorded on the album when Elsie and her friends would return from the pub and have a sing-song.

The cover features Ringo in a tuxedo superimposed at the front-door of the pub and family members in the windows.

The pub closed in recent years but, as can be seen from the photos, the building has been put to good use.

We visited the area in 2022: https://youtu.be/eQJjhKChvWc?si=33W0sO8PfGYpCsKn

Singing Streets, available for free from the App Store, has hundreds of music related locations to visit in Liverpool, and thousands more in the US, UK and Ireland: http://apps.apple.com/ie/app/singing-streets/id1487395261

06/07/2024

On 6 July 1980, Bob Marley performed his final outdoor concert at Dalymount Park in Dublin.

During the concert, he referenced "the Irish struggle" before performing 'Redemption Song'.

Marley’s played his last gig proper at The Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA, in September 1980, before his death the following May.

Dalymount Park, home of Bohemian Football Club and one time home of the Irish international football team, also held Dublin's first major open air rock festival on 21 August 1977, at which Thin Lizzy and the Boomtown Rats played.

In January 2022, Bohemians secured the rights to use an image of Bob Marley on its 2022 away jersey - see: https://www.shop-bohemianfc.com/products/marley-away-jersey-2022

Singing Streets, available for download from the App Store, has hundreds of music related locations to visit in Dublin, and thousands more in the US and UK: http://apps.apple.com/ie/app/singing-streets/id1487395261

25/12/2023

Born on Christmas Day 1957, Shane MacGowan would have been 66 today.

During a bitterly cold New York week in November 1987, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl filmed the video for what would be the greatest of all Christmas songs.

The opening to the video, set on Christmas Eve in the drunk tank, was shot at the former 23rd precinct of the NYPD at 138 West 30th Street, a stone’s throw from the Madison Square Garden and the Empire State Building.

The video features a young Matt Dillon, playing a police man, leading our hero into the cells for the night.

The building now houses the NYPD Citywide Traffic Task Force.

Happy Christmas from Singing Streets!

https://youtu.be/j9jbdgZidu8?si=xSMrlbHP_elgbNVJ

24/12/2023

In addition to over 1,700 New York locations, the new release of Singing Streets also has many new spots to discover around London, including:

The album cover locations of Rod Stewart’s ‘Gasoline Alley’ and Led Zeppelin’s ‘The Song Remains The Same’.

The houses around the corner from each other in Hammersmith where S*x Pistols’ drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones grew-up.

Where Iggy Pop stayed when he wrote ‘Raw Power’ and where the Eagles lived when they were in London to record their debut album.

guitarguitar in Camden, storied live venues such as Brixton Jamm, and the site of Man In The Moon on King’s Road (where X-Ray Spec played early gigs).

Download now for free from the App Store: http://apps.apple.com/ie/app/singing-streets/id1487395261