The Harlem of Europe
Strawberry Field's new exhibit | Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe at Victoria Gallery & Museum | Latest NW arts news
On Thursday morning, I watched lots of people getting very excited by a banjo bought by my grandad being unveiled to the public. They weren’t getting very excited because it had been bought by my grandad, but rather because it was played by Rod Davis - my uncle - in The Quarrymen. And sometimes he’d handed it to John Lennon for a strum.
When I arrived at Strawberry Field for a celebration of what would have been Lennon’s 85th birthday if he hadn’t been murdered at the age of 40, I didn’t know about the banjo. I was there because my uncle was playing a set and he’d invited me along. I don’t get to see him very often and it sounded like fun. I hadn’t done my usual research because I was there as a guest, not as a journalist, but like a typical reporter I ended up on the other side of the unveiling, with a good view of the crowd and the photographers snapping them.
“Whose banjo is it?” I asked one of the Strawberry Field staff, because although I suspected the right answer, you always find out more from people if you don’t make any assumptions. And as she explained about how it had been donated by an American collector who had bought it from Rod in auction and was loaning it to Strawberry Field, it struck me that this banjo had been held by my grandparents and also by my Dad, who died four years ago.
This banjo had been part of the busy, musical, creative world of my Dad’s childhood that has lived in my imagination since my own. It is part of the story of how he became the sort of accomplished musician and entertainer who played more instruments than I can list here, made his own wooden jig dolls and accompanied our (accidental) first wedding dance on the musical saw. And part of the story that led me to pick up a violin at the age of four and my eight-year-old son to tell me that if he was a YouTube billionaire he would spend money on music lessons for kids who could afford them because Grandpa (who he barely remembers) would have liked that.
And there it is in a glass case, just a few roads away from the house it was taken back to after being bought in Wales - meaning so much to so many, many Beatles fans, and something entirely different to me.
And now on to the main piece, which also has a Beatles link - but is also its own fascinating, glorious story in itself.
‘It’s important to get across the impact they’ve had on music in Liverpool and the wider world’
Before taking their portrait, photographer Ean Flanders usually spends a period of time getting to know his subjects, understanding their personality and the way they think before asking them to sit in a carefully constructed setting. When it came to his Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe project however, things went a little differently.
For the musicians featured in the exhibition, coming together to have their pictures taken was a long-awaited reunion. Having their pictures taken came second.
Flanders says: “My process is to get a connection with the subject, to talk to them and put them at ease and basically tell them that ‘this is about you being yourself’. It’s trying to get them just to be who they are in that brief moment, which for this has been extremely challenging because I do not normally photograph so many people over a short period of time.”
You wouldn’t be able to tell this from the portraits, which are filled with the personality of the musicians sitting for them. Take Flanders’ image of Joe Ankrah, of male vocal harmony group The Chants, which he founded with his brother Eddie Ankrah - along with Nat Smeda, Alan Harding and Eddie Amoo - in the early-1960s. They rehearsed in their cellar on Parliament Street before playing in venues in Liverpool and abroad, dressed in sharp mohair suits with thin ties.
In the photograph, Ankrah sits in front of The Jacaranda Club sign. His left arm leans on a chair back, while his right rests on his leg. He gazes into the distance - remembering the past? But you get the feeling he’s not done yet. His body isn’t fully relaxed, his arm on the chair isn’t draped, more temporarily placed. Where will he head off to next?
The lighting is reminiscent of a smoky blues bar - the sign’s lettering and the cymbal in the background seem almost to glow. The folds in the fabric of Ankrah’s jacket and jumper look carefully arranged, like the garments on a marble statue, but in fact that’s just the way they fell when he sat down.
Flanders says: “I allowed him to be himself. Didn’t ask him to take his hat off, didn’t ask him to change anything. When I take a portrait, I look at everything, at every corner of the frame. I set up the environment first, then drop them into it.”
Pointing out that The Chants were supported by The Beatles during a gig in The Cavern is a bit like describing a woman by who she is married to, but it’s better than leaving them out of the Beatles story altogether - something that happened to calypso musician and music promoter Lord Woodbine.
Real name Harold Phillips, at the age of 14 he arrived in the UK on the Windrush in 1948. He died in 2000 so was not one of Flanders’ subjects for Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe, but a photograph of him as a young man features in the exhibition, alongside one with him, Beatles manager Allan Williams and his wife Beryl Williams, and the ‘lads’ themselves - at that point John Lennon (unpictured), Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best. It was Lord Woodbine’s and Williams’ idea to take The Beatles to Hamburg - the picture was taken along the way - yet at some point his image was airbrushed from the photograph. He only found this out in 1992 while watching a play called Imagine at the Liverpool Playhouse, when he was “really hurt” by the discovery.
Flanders, whose photography projects often highlight social injustice and marginalisation, says: “It’s important to get across these musicians’ lived experiences, and the impact that they’ve had on music in Liverpool and the wider world. A lot of these artists have been overlooked because of racial imbalances, and because a lot of them were not able to play their music to a wider audience.”
Two of Lord Woodbine’s daughters, both singers, also feature in the exhibition - Flanders photographed Barbara and Susan Phillips with their vocal harmony group Distinction at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. Distinction, whose other members are Amanda Smith and Donna Alleyne, were the first female Black British group to be signed by a major record label.
They are joined in the show by Ramon Sugar Deen, of The Harlems, and The Real Thing’s Chris Amoo and Dave Smith, as well as “The Godfather of Funk” Les Spaine, 1970s club DJ, former Motown UK head of radio and television and now CEO of the Spaine Music Company.
While Flanders is happy to be playing a part in recognised these incredible, ground-breaking Black music artists, he is frustrated by the lack of progress. Another of his exhibitions, currently open at the Everyman Theatre, is a project with the Liverpool-based Black Actors Collective, formed to increase the visibility of the region’s Black and mixed race actors and to support each other in their careers.
He says: “The stories these actors are talking about is the same sort of thing - they’re not having the opportunity to gain work. A lot of the casting companies are saying, ‘Well, we don’t know of any Black Liverpudlians’. They’re out there.
“There seems very little has changed. So this is why I do what I do - to highlight this, these disparities and inequalities, and to challenge people to confront them.
Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe is at Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool, until Sunday, April 26, 2026.
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Latest arts news
🎫 INDIKA, a 15-day celebration of Indian music, dance and culture organised by Milap will take place across Liverpool from Friday, October 17 to Friday, October 31. lt will showcase both contemporary music and dance as well as traditional forms, plus yoga, poetry, storytelling and family activities.
🍸 A new stage version of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway will premiere at Storyhouse Chester next spring before a UK tour. It has been co-created by director Jen Heyes and Olivier Award-winning writer Kit Green, who will play the lead role and other characters.
🛣️ Lesley Joseph will join the cast of a contemporary revival of Jim Cartwright’s ROAD opening at Manchester’s Royal Exchange in February. She will join Lucy Beaumont, Shobna Gulati, Johnny Vegas and Sir Tom Courtenay in the production directed by Selina Cartmell.
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One for all the family
A spectacular firelit concert for all the family will be taking place at Queens Gardens in Warrington on Wednesday, October 29. Halloween in the Gardens: A Night of Music and Fire will feature a range of spooky musical performances under the glow of flickering flames. It’s a free event with performers including six-piece roaring 1920s/30s band Dr Jazz, Flat Pack Music, opera musicians breaking down barriers to classical music, and community choirs, Wired for Sound, Warrington BSL Choir and PopVox Choir.
Opening this week
My Mum’s a Blue and my husband is a Red (and I’m football-indifferent) so I’m not choosing between which of the above images to include in this week’s newsletter. They are from Home Ground: The Architecture of Football, the new exhibition at RIBA North + Tate Liverpool, which highlights the history of football stadium design from the 1890s to the present day. It’s on until Tuesday, January 6, 2026.
Thank you for reading the 149th edition of Stored Honey. If you enjoyed what you read then please hit the ❤️ button as it helps to get it shown more widely.
I’m off now to get ahead on next week’s newsletter so I don’t send it so late next time!
Have a great week,
Laura
P.S. Art gallery scheme encourages children to be noisy
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