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Formed in Liverpool in 1958, The Spinners were Hughie Jones, Cliff Hall, Mick Groves and Tony Davis (later supplemented by John McCormick). The group gigged hard around the folk clubs of the North West over the next few years but really took off with TV exposure; they eventually won their own regular show on BBC1, which ran for six years from 1970. Their relatively sweet sound, based around close vocal harmonies, led some to dismiss them as safe and bland, but their multiracial line-up - featuring Cuban-born, Jamaica-raised Hall on vocals, harmonica and guitar - marked them out from their all-white peers and influenced their sound, with Hall's imported Caribbean songs blending with the group's menu of traditional and self-written English folk. Their attachment to their home city is reflected in their well-loved versions of the bittersweet 'The Leaving of Liverpool' and the unusually charged 'In My Liverpool Home'.
This footage captures the band on the now-forgotten ABC folk/R&B showcase Hullaboloo! (ITV Midlands region, 1963-64) at the end of 1963. The band perform Ewan McColl's much-covered 'Dirty Old Town', now better known in a more acerbic version by The Pogues, and another slice of working-class life on Merseyside, 'Liverpool Barrer Boy'.
Mark Duguid
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Dirty Old Town (3:02)
