The Troubadour, Where the History of Rock was Written

When Bob Dylan went to London for the first time, the only advice his mentor Pete Seeger gave him was to look for “Anthea at the Troubadour”. It was 1962 and the café in Chelsea was already a legend in the music and countercultural scene. The twenty-one-year-old singer stepped through the ornate door and found Anthea Joseph, the young local event organiser - he would play on Christmas under the name of Blind Boy Grunt. In the rough-edged Earl’s Court, the Troubadour’s name evoked images of Medieval minstrels but it was actually the beating heart of a contemporary revolution. Here, the raw satire of Private Eye was born, as well as the pacifist movement CND, against nuclear proliferation. The Black Panthers would meet here in 1968 after the protests in Paris. However, the Troubadour is, foremost, associated with Rock and Roll and Folk and Blues - Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Morrissey and Led Zeppelin - they all played here in legendary concerts or sudden improv jams. Unlike the other cafés of that era, the Troubadour never closed. It changed owners more than once but without betraying its roots, renovated and enlarged so it could continue hosting the biggest names in music - from Amos Lee to Adele, from Morcheeba to Ed Sheeran, from Paolo Nutini to Jack Peñate and the Dead 60s.