The Cat's Whisker was a coffee bar situated at 1

Kingly Street Kingly Street is a street in London's Soho district. It runs north to south from Liberty's and Foubert's Place to Beak Street, in parallel to, and between, Regent Street and Carnaby Street. Known as King Street until 1906, the first buildin ...

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

, London, during the mid-late 1950s. It offered London youngsters Spanish dancing, live

rock 'n roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African American music such as jazz, rhythm and ...

, and

skiffle Skiffle is a music genre, genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, Country music, country, Bluegrass music, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. ...

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. It saw the invention of a new style of 'dancing' known as hand-jive, a complicated pattern of hand gestures only, and claps at various parts of the body, as there was no space to maneuver in the crowded basement. The venue was closed in 1958, owing to overcrowding.

History

The Cat's Whisker coffee bar was started by entrepreneur Peter Evans, and was one of the first to have a

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that plays a user-selected song from a self-contained media library. Traditional jukeboxes contain records, compact discs, or digital files, and allow user ...

. It was located in the middle of Soho at the corner of

and Beak Street, between

Carnaby Street Carnaby Street is a Pedestrian zone, pedestrianised shopping street in Soho in the City of Westminster, Central London. Close to Oxford Street and Regent Street, it is home to fashion and lifestyle retailers, including many independent fashion ...

and

Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George IV of the United Kingdom, George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash (architect), J ...

, around the corner from the toy store

Hamleys Hamleys of London Limited, trading as Hamleys, is a British multinational toy retailer, owned by Reliance Retail. Listed in the ''Guinness Book of Records'' as the world's oldest toy store, it was founded by William Hamley as "Noah's Ark" in H ...

. It attracted large crowds, including ice skating champions, international rugby players, journalists and students, for

espresso Espresso (, ) is a concentrated form of coffee produced by forcing hot water under high pressure through finely ground coffee beans. Originating in Italy, espresso has become one of the most popular coffee-brewing methods worldwide. It is cha ...

(priced at a

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

per cup) and music. The venue was situated in the heart of

theatreland West End theatre is mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in and near the West End of London.Christopher Innes"West End"in ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1194–1195, ...

, and catered for diners before or after the theatre. In 1956, Evans hired Hank Huffner to refurbish the bar's cellar as an exclusive 'live' venue. The L-shaped cellar had primitive paintings of cats chasing mice on the walls and six stone cats as light-sources round the walls. The basement was exclusive, there being no indication of its existence on the ground floor. At first, the cellar had the feel of "Hernando's Hideaway", with regular performances from guitarist Jose Feller and dancer Carmen Ballisteras, formerly with the Ballet Espagnol de Pilar Lopez. Together with

The 2i's Coffee Bar The 2i's Coffee Bar was a coffeehouse at 59 Old Compton Street in Soho, London, that was open from 1956 to 1970. It played a formative role in the emergence of Britain's skiffle and rock and roll music culture in the late 1950s, and several m ...

, The Cat's Whisker from Biography (Extract from 'Skiffle the Definitive Inside Story') later spearheaded the nascent pop scene, with appearances by 'before-they-were-famous' musicians like

Cliff Richard Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British singer and actor. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and, as of 2012, was the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart histo ...

Lonnie Donegan Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002) was a British skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the " King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Scotland and brought ...

Terry Dene Terry Dene (born Terence Williams, 20 December 1938) is a British rock music singer popular in the late 1950s and early 60s. He had three Top Twenty hits between June 1957 and May 1958. Career Dene was born in Lancaster Street, Elephant & Cas ...

Tommy Steele Sir Thomas Hicks (born 17 December 1936), known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star. After being discovered at the 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho, London, Steele recor ...

, guitarist Barry Warren, the Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group and other artists who dropped by to unwind after working the nearby nightspots Churchill's, the Bag O'Nails, Coconut Grove, Cabaret and Eve. Like Feller and Ballisteras, the musicians were generally "paid with coffee and Cokes". Freelance photographer

Ken Russell Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films were mainly liberal adaptations of ...

, in his pre-film director days, captured the 'energy and excitement' of this night life in Soho for ''

Picture Post ''Picture Post'' was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,000,000 copies a week after only two months. ...

'' and these atmospheric images resurfaced in the Soho Nights exhibition by The

Photographers' Gallery The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London by Sue Davies opening on 14 January 1971, as the first public gallery in the United Kingdom devoted solely to photography. It is also home to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, established ...

, London, December 2008 – February 2009. Russell recalls: "I remember the atmosphere was very jolly. So I made a number of visits to the Cat's Whisker. Cliff Richard used to appear there. I used to join in the hand-jiving." When the police closed down The Cat's Whisker because of overcrowding in 1958, Evans opened the first of the Angus Steak Houses at this venue, before later starting the London-based David Hicks–decorated restaurant chain that bore his own name, Peter Evans Eating Houses, and the upmarket Raffles night club in

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents) is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

, Chelsea. As of 2009, The Cat's Whisker had been replaced by the Korean restaurant Myung Ga.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cat's Whisker, The Music venues in London Coffeehouses and cafés in the United Kingdom Soho, London