Sister Rosetta Tharpe: concert at 1960s UK railway station

[locoholic]

Saw this on Facebook! US blues singer perfoming on the platform of what looks like a railway station in England, with the audience on the opposite platform.

 

Does anyone know when and where this was? I guess it was on a Sunday at a station with no Sunday service!

 

I can't figure out how to put a link to the video footage, so here is a screenshot.

 

[Holmesfeldian]

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/when-the-blues-train-rolled-into-chorlton-1049592

[alfsboy]

Iconic event  for all us blues oldies .

[locoholic]

The newspaper report seems to suggest that the trains kept running! What an amazing story.

[65179]

There's a fair amount of misinformation about this on the internet.  As with the MEN piece linked to above, a number of people have got confused about the location.  It wasn't actually filmed at Chorlton-######-Hardy station (now a tram stop next to Morrisons supermarket and accessed from Wilbraham Road), but was actually filmed one station further on and round the GC Fallowfield Loop at Wilbraham Road station.  By that date the station had lost its stopping passenger service (Manchester Central- Guide Bridge), but the line was very much still open for freight and through passenger services:

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/wilbraham_road/

 

Simon

Edited January 22, 2019 by 65179

[The Johnster]

What an imaginative use of a railway station; with the performer under the canopy on an opposite platform the acoustics would be pretty good.  Presumably this took place 'between trains', though.

[petethemole]

Several numbers from the concert are on YouTube, easy to find.

[Dava]

Joe Boyd was there as tour manager & wrote about it in his book 'White Bicycles' which has gone mysteriously 'on tour' from my bookshelf! The tour was by train.

[alfsboy]

We all lusted for a white  Gibson SG custom after that .i gather that the stars were amazed they werent segregated in hotels , restaurants,trains etc.

[keefer]

Indeed and when a lot of the blues/R&B legends toured the UK in the '60s, they were suspicious of the attention they got from all the young, white bands/guitarists of the time (think Clapton, Yardbirds etc etc). They thought they were out to rip off their material/money or both, but they soon realised these kids idolised them and were giving them the respect they didn't get back home. It would take their success in Britain & Europe to show America what it was missing. The US at the time thought they were relics from the past

[Johann Marsbar]

Fascinating fact time...........

Radio Caroline are currently playing a new song (as one of their featured tracks of the week) called "Sister Rosetta" by an artist called Frank Turner, which actually references the concert on the railway station in its lyrics!