The History of Music in Leicester
by Trevor Locke
16th October 2016
Introduction
This series of articles covers the history of popular music in Leicester. As these are published – in a series of articles – the links to them will be placed on this page.
Please bookmark this page and come back to it when you want to read the latest instalment in the series.
Articles previously published on Music In Leicester magazine:
Leicester’s music history and heritage.
Current articles in this series
The decade of the noughties – 2000 to 2013
As soon as you write about today, it passes into the past. The word ‘today’ is an inherent misnomer. Today quickly becomes yesterday and ‘now’ is simply the present sliding into the past. History is all about todays that have gone by.
This series of articles traces the music that was heard and played in Leicester from contemporary times backwards. Contemporary times are those of the immediate past. Our journey starts in 2013; and works backwards. 2013 was the year in which Music in Leicester magazine started so we have a lot of pages from 2013 to the present time which are available on this website.
To find articles that form part of the story of Leicester musical history (in this magazine) use the contents page.
or select the #history tag from the list on the right of each page →
Or go to this page. (which brings togther articles tagged in our history series.)
Read the articles in our column Going To Gigs.
My aim is to write about stuff that has disappeared from the Internet or which might be hard to find.
The reason for this is that no music ever exists in isolation; all music (like any other form of art) has its roots; it takes its nourishment from the soil of its previous periods. Music is a tree that is sustained by the music of yesterday. What we hear ‘today’ cannot exist without the music made yesterday; this year’s music flowed from last year’s music, and so on, as far back as we can try to go.
These articles lay the foundations for a book bearing the same title. In this respect the articles sketch and outline a more substantial work into which much more detail will be deposited. It is a project that will take me many years to complete.
The articles are concerned mainly with popular music; although classical music is not ignored, my focus is on rock, pop and other genres that form part of which we might call ‘popular music.’ It is right that we should take, as our frame of reference, the whole community of Leicester. The music of Leicester is, and always has been, the product of a wide variety of peoples and their cultures. The people of this city are not, nor have they ever been, a monolithic group. Leicester is the typical city of diversity.
All music is a reflection of the time in which it was made; it is part of the community; it is a cultural manifestation of the values, preoccupations and tastes of the people in whose time it was made. Hence, we have to describe the life and times of a period to fully understand its music. Music of the people will always reflect the times in which it was made.
Photos of bands from the recent past
I could put a huge number of photos into these articles. Instead I am going to prepare special galleries on a different platform and provide links to these with each of the articles.
(this version, of this page, was edited on 16th November 2017)
