Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames at The Flamingo Club
It’s not widely known but Georgie Fame was slightly connected to the Profumo affair, the political scandal that led to the resignation of John Profumo the Secretary of State for War in October 1963 and ultimately the fall of the Conservative government, a year later, in 1964.
In 1962 Georgie Fame had started a three year residency at The Flamingo Club – famous for its weekend all-nighters where it stayed open ’til six in the morning on Friday and Saturday nights. It was situated at 33 Wardour Street, a building which also housed the Wag Club during the eighties and nineties, and is now the Irish-theme pub O’Neills.
The police outside The Flamingo in Wardour Street
The Flamingo Club which originally specialised in modern jazz was opened by Rik and John Gunnell in 1959. The club quickly became popular with West Indians and also black American soldiers that were still stationed in quite large numbers just outside London and who had few other places to socialise. Georgie Fame once recalled:
“there were only a handful of hip young white people that used to go to The Flamingo. When I first went there as a punter I was scared. Once I started to play there, it was no problem.”
Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames
Fame, who was born Clive Powell but was instructed to change his name as part of Larry Parnes’ stable (he was originally Billy Fury’s pianist), often employed black musicians, one of which was the strikingly named ‘Psycho’ Gordon – a Jamaican who come to the UK in the late 1940s.
Psycho Gordon often brought to The Flamingo Club his brother ‘Lucky Gordon’ a part-time jazz singer and drug dealer. Lucky had also been a boyfriend of the infamous Christine Keeler and it was at one of the hot and sweaty ‘all-nighter’ Flamingo sessions in October 1962 when Gordon bumped into another of Keeler’s black lovers – Johnny Edgecombe.
Gordon and Edgecombe started arguing and it soon developed into a vicious knife fight. The fracas ended with Edgecombe badly slicing the face of, this time a rather unlucky, ‘Lucky’ Gordon. No one knew, least of all the two protagonists, but the fight started a slow-burning fuse that eventually caused the explosion that became the most infamous political scandal of the twentieth century.
Aloysius 'Lucky' Gordon the sometime lover of Christine Keeler
Gordon was treated for his wound at a local hospital but a few days later in a fit of jealousy, and rather unpleasantly, he posted the seventeen used stitches to Keeler and warned her that for each stitch he had sent she would also get two on her face in return.
Meanwhile a scared Edgecombe, along with Keeler, went into hiding from the police. Keeler even bought a Luger pistol in a bid to protect herself from the dangerous and still threatening Gordon.
On December 14th 1962 Keeler finished with Edgecombe, after finding him with another lover, saying that she would testify that it was he who had attacked Lucky Gordon at The Flamingo two months previously.
Keeler went to visit her friend Mandy Rice-Davies at Stephen Ward’s flat in Wimpole Mews with Johnny Edgecombe following her there in a taxi. When Keeler refused to speak to him he angrily shot seven bullets at the door of the flat. Frightened, the girls called Ward at his surgery and he in turn called the police who soon came and arrested Edgecombe.
Lucky Gordon and Johnny Edgecombe
Before Edgecombe’s trial, Keeler was whisked off to Spain, one assumes because somebody, somewhere, thought various people would be badly compromised if she was allowed to talk in the witness box. Conspicuous by Keeler’s absence Edgecombe was found not guilty, both for assaulting Lucky Gordon and the attempted murder of Keeler. He was, however, found guilty of possession of an illegal firearm, for which he got seven years and served five.
Christine Keeler in Spain
On April 1st 1963 Christine was fined for her non-appearance at court and Lucky Gordon was bundled away by the Metropolitan police, shouting “I love that girl!” Not long after Keeler bumped into Gordon back at The Flamingo Club and again he had to be dragged away from her by other West Indian friends of hers.
The police struggling with Lucky Gordon 1st April 1963
In June 1963 Gordon was given a three year prison sentence for supposedly assaulting Keeler and in the same month Stephen Ward was arrested for living off Christine’s immoral earnings.
By now the whole story involving Profumo and the Russian attache/spy Ivananov was emerging, drip by drip. The chain of events that started with the fight of Keeler’s jealous ex-lovers at The Flamingo Club eventually caused the infamous resignation of the Secretary of State for War John Profumo, the suicide of high society’s favourite pimp, portrait painter and osteopath Stephen Ward, and ultimately, it could be said, the fall of the Conservative government.
Christine Keeler outside the Old Bailey 1st April 1963
Christine Keeler with friend 25th April 1963
Stephen Ward unconscious after his suicide attempt. He died a few days later.
In December 1963, after a drunken tape-recorded confession that she had lied about Gordon assaulting her, Keeler pleaded guilty of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice at Lucky Gordon’s trial. Her barrister had pleaded to the judge before sentencing:
“Ward is dead, Profumo is disgraced. And now I know your lordship will resist the temptation to take what I might call society’s pound of flesh.”
It was to no avail and Christine Keeler was sentenced to nine months in jail which ended what her barrister termed, a little prematurely:
“the last chapter in this long saga that has been called the Keeler affair.”
Lucky Gordon after his release from prison
Christine Keeler arriving at court, October 1963
29th October 1963
Just before Christine Keeler’s trial Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames recorded a live album entitled Rhythm and Blues at “The Flamingo” and it was released in early 1964. The following year Fame had a number one hit with his version of ‘Yeh Yeh’.
After the publicised trouble at The Flamingo, American service men were banned from visiting the club. However, drawn by the weekend all-nighters and the music policy of black American R ‘n’ B and jazz, The Flamingo Club was already becoming the favourite hang-out for London’s newest teenager cult, the Mods. But that’s a different story…
"What if I sit astride the chair? It might just work."
Georgie Fame – Night Train (recorded at The Flamingo)
Derrick and Patsy – Hey Boy Hey Girl
Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland – Turn On Your Lovelight
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles – I Gotta Dance To Keep From Crying
Kim Weston – Looking For The Right Guy
Brenda Holloway – I’ll Always Love You
Buy some Georgie Fame stuff here
Tags: dancing, death, gossip, gun, jazz, politics, Profumo, prostitution, scandal, sex, sixties, Soho, trial, Wardour Street
The good ol’ days…? the Flamingo Club certainly. Go Geogie Fame & Blue Flames…Hammond / Sax…et al
These are amazing photos. I remember this era very well and thought I had seen all the photos that were to be seen on the whole affair. Makes you wonder what other photos are out there.
We bumped into Georgie Fame in our Sainsbury’s Local last – oh bugger, I’ve already done that one.
Top marks, a terrific read. And the article pointed me to Lambert, Hendricks and Ross’s version of ‘Yeh Yeh’, which I’d never heard.
A fascinating story well told. And what great pictures! Seems to me that whoever gave the Gordon brothers their nicknames got things the wrong way around.
Brilliant stuff! I’d long been under the (wrong!) impression that the stabbing was between some G.I’s. After that (or so I’ve read) the Flamingo Club was off limits to G.I’s, though that would not be true as they can clearly be heard (as pointed out by G.F. in an interview) in between numbers on the live Georgie Fame LP recorded there after the stabbing!
Fantabulous story . More please .
more Georgie Fame, Falmingo club and mod years stories on
http://jackthatcatwasclean.blogspot.com/
Excellent ‘post’. Photo’s, Text and music. reads very well. I recently adopted the Bobby Bland tune to kick off a 3 week Mod/ernist theme of music, (which you may enjoy), and dialogue from the early sixties on my musical diary, themusicologist that finished yesterday. Now that I have discovered your page I look forward to reading more.
another brilliant read THANKS
You no doubt know this already but the band pictured outside the Flamingo is Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band wih Zoot on the far right, standing next to his young guitarist Andy Summmers, later of the Police.
Great story! Good to know all the deets.
I was pre-teen Yank when the Profumo scandal was in the headlines. Racy stuff!
Great story and very nice pictures! Although I do not see the correlation between the two avents besids both party’s knew Christine, it is a very good story.
The connection is that after a series of events following the fight at the Flamingo Club, Edgecombe came to Stephen Ward’s flat and started shooting a gun. The police came involved and the rest is history. The brother of one of the people involved in said fight played in Georgie Fame’s band at the Flamingo. So it all is connected.
I did not speak about the connection in the story, I mean that very clear and makes it a very good story. I’m talking abgout the two events, the shooting and the downfall of Profumo and later the PM. The event that led to Profumo’s downfall was that during his 3 weeks relationship with Christine, she as also seeing a Russian member/worker of the Ambassade, not that shooting in Wards’s house. Ward was the person who introduced her to Profumo, but Profumo is not linked to that shooting.
So I think that this is very good story and it’s telling us about that they were connected trough Keeler, but to say that this fight and shooting led to Profumo’s downfall is a bit far fetched.
Lucky Gordon went on to become Bob Marleys cook in the 1970s. Round about the time Bob was recordinh the KAYA album. 77-78.
Just curious – what’s the significance of that list of songs at the end?
Really interesting article, btw.
Brilliant pictures of the Flamingo. Yes, very interesting.
The most exciting club of all. Atmosphere electric albeit often with a little fear.
A great era!!
At15 years old introduced to Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames by older chef boyfriend – Roger Knowles of Sheffield. Later when in Nowich, U.K. saw Georgie & The Blue Flames perform there at St. Andrews Hall when the Flames were predominantly Black. They were great but not so great off stage as young entertainers that are ‘cool’ were tring too hard to be!!
Coincidentally, years later in early 70’s in Johannesburg, South Africa, I and my parents were invited by Rory Blackwell to a party. Fame’s fans and indeed he, will remember Rory well from the early days of his career. Georgie is still great in his genre’, one of the best! Wonder does he still perform and anyone know of my old flame – Roger Knowles?????
I also remember an ex-GI called Gino Washington who used to perform there at the Flamingo. Quite friendly and talkative kind of guy, just as popular as Georgie Fame. He had a backing group called the Ram Jam Band.
What a great read. I was there throughout the sixties mod era and I read this with great memories I wanted to be there when Georgie recorded his live LP but could never go in the week
Great Times
My friend, David, and I used to go to the Flamingo. That was where the Jazz Couriers played, co-led by Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, before Ronnie opened his own place. We also saw Tony Kinsey(drums), Bill LeSage(vibes) and Joe Harriot(baritone sax).
We also went to the 2 I’s coffee bar.