The Crown on Station Street, Birmingham, home of the original Henry’s Blueshouse in the late 60s and where it all began. Not long before the pub rang its final last orders six years ago, Jim revisted the upstairs gig room that played host to too many big names to mention. Here he recalls the circumstances behind that visit:
Seven years ago, quite out of the blue, I took a phone call from Fansworld TV, the first Web TV channel in Latin America. Based in Buenos Aires, they had been talking to the Big Bear Records distributor in Argentina, saying that they were set to film their music programme for 8 days across Europe, two of those days were to be in the UK, one was allocated for London, and where should they go to for the other?
Phone Jim Simpson in Birmingham was the response. They asked if I could suggest topics and places to film and could I show them around?
The film crew arrived, with not a lot of English between them, and it slowly became clear that I was expected to do the interview. That’s my excuse for the somewhat informal nature of what follows: