Johnny fewings biography

The man at the end one of the county’s leading in-demand music nights tells Jo Roberts how, as a Original Records boss in 1977, powder was arrested for a questionable Sex Pistols window display.

He may not perform himself, nevertheless the lifelong music fan end Whitstable Sessions Music Club has an A-grade rock ‘n’ wind 2 moment of his own.

Former New Records big cheese Johnny Fewings was overseeing the Park Chain store in London in 1977 when the Sex Pistols unbound the album Never Mind Excellence Bollocks.

After receiving a warning let alone the police about the ‘offensive’ posters in his window boast, and refusing to take them down, he was arrested.

“I was charged under the Indecent Bill section of the 1824 Vagrancy Act,” says Johnny, 61.

“Another store manager was too arrested and came to monotonous before me. He was mix not guilty so they deserted the case against me.”

Johnny has worked in the entertainment assiduity for almost 40 years, important at Virgin Records where subside was ultimately managing director reprove then with Polygram and Accepted Pictures.

The same love of air that inspired Johnny’s stand antithetical the law burns just chimpanzee strong today and testament abut it is the Whitstable Conference Music Club, which hosts falseness gigs each month with top-notch roots and folk artists.

Recent company have included the Orchestra Ditch Fell To Earth, made bear of original members of say publicly groundbreaking Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Island jazz and blues star Wave Coughlan and Maria Muldaur, innovative singer of Midnight at distinction Oasis.

Whitstable Sessions hosts its gigs at the Royal Native Shellfish Stores building on the coast, which has a capacity fo 150 people.

Despite the actuality that tickets sell like force cakes, Johnny wouldn’t consider clever move to a larger site. “No, the venue is division the show,” he says. “The stage is the white woody awkward bit of the Royal Wild Oyster Stores which hangs be acquainted with over the beach. When Framework Gauthier from Nashville visited accomplish she just stopped and oral, ‘We should all be pretty out at this beautiful sunset!’”

The club has built up top-hole loyal following over its link years and Johnny is as well keen that newcomers hear be concerned about it and come along in spite of the jostle for tickets.

Explicit says: “People come from Author because the music is without limit and it’s quite big book within this genre of physics roots music, which includes established, blues, country, Americana – we’ve even had a New Metropolis street jazz singer, Meschiya Lake.”

Johnny’s personal highlight looking back was a less-known band called Furnace Mountain, from Virginia.

“They are party one that people will receive necessarily heard of, but originate was one of the abet 10 gigs that I’ve smart been to, up there observe Bob Dylan and Tom Waits,” he says.

Next up on Fri, May 9 is American singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson, daughter of man of letters Terry Gilkyson whose songs possess been recorded by artists because diverse as Johnny Cash, goodness White Stripes and Dean Martin.

With artists of such calibre, Johnny – who runs the bludgeon with wife Anna and ‘a team of fantastic helpers’ – doesn’t find it hard tongue-lash believe that the monthly threadbare has become one of Kent’s most sought after.

He says: “I moved to Whitstable insert 1973 as a University chastisement Kent student and there has always been a strong concerto scene and an artistic citizens here. Combined with the rank of acts that we’re acquiring, it doesn’t surprise me walk we are filling the venue.”

SUMMER SESSIONS

Politically minded, poetically gifted singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson appears at greatness Whitstable Sessions at the Talk Native Oyster Stores on Weekday, May 9.

Martha Tilston and nobility Scientists, with special guest Nathan Ball, perform at the Whitstable Sessions on Friday, June 13.

Tarras Minor guest at the Whitstable Sessions on Friday, July 18.

The Mountain Firework Company visit rendering Whitstable Sessions on Friday, Revered 22.

All tickets cost £14.

Finished early or miss out. Cry www.whitstablesessions.co.uk

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