Can you help open window to unravel a musical mystery?

THE Debonaires remain a mystery. Their picture adorns a wall in Wood Street, Huddersfield, opposite premises that used to house the iconic Builders Club that brought folk, blues and rock and roll to the town in the 1960s and early 70s. Does the picture have significance?

Jazz writer Laurie Stead asked for information about four bricked up windows that have been covered with enlargements of photographs: a Town Hall concert, two mill scenes and one of The Debonaires dance band. So far no one has provided any information about the pictorial display or the band from another era when swing was king.

Before rock and roll in the 1940s and 50s, big bands provided weekend musical entertainment. Patrons waltzed or quick-stepped and teenage boys and girls took lessons in ballroom dancing, not necessarily in pursuit of the perfect paso doble, but so they would have a legitimate excuse to take each other in their arms. And watch out for the last waltz.

Even I took lessons in my mid teens in Cheshire, where I grew up. My mate Dave dragged me along to a dance studio because he said it was a good way to meet young ladies. I suffered two Saturday afternoons of acute embarrassment, although we did meet girls and, by joining, gained entry to the studio’s Saturday night rock and roll disco.

I managed the waltz and could quick-step without kicking anyone’s shins, but gave up when we were introduced to the foxtrot. A foxtrot? A fox?

Trotting?

Every town had weekend big band dances. Venues in Huddersfield included the Town Hall, Cambridge Road Baths, The Masonic Hall, The Sheridan Rooms on Chapel Hill, and The Regent in Bradford Road, which had been a cinema from the 1930s to the 1950s.

The contributions to Huddersfield Then And Now, one of my favourite Facebook pages, show the potency of musical memories. The site has used the same picture of The Regent Ballroom (supplied by Andrew Chajdas) three times in the last 12 months and on each occasion provoked hundreds of memories.

From it’s Saturday children’s cinema matinee in the 1950s, through dance bands such as the Brian Tann Band and the Lewis Hill Band, to the arrival and impact of rock and roll. Records were played during the interval when the big bands took a break, and the jive took over from formal dancing for half an hour. Then the vinyl was replaced by local bands such as The Schedules, The Shikanes and Bluescheckers, getting their first chance to perform live.

When rock and roll and pop music took over, the metamorphosis became complete and the venue became a nightclub: Vanity Fair, the Stars Bar and the Roxy Bar. Now it’s the award winning Shama Indian restaurant.

As Mary Hopkins sang: “Those were the days, my friends, we thought they’d never end.”

One thing is for sure, they haven’t ended in the memories of all those who lived through those musical eras at The Regent.