Sounds of the city in an evolving musical story

LIVERPOOL had its fabled Merseybeat, while the music scene that revolved around The Hacienda and Factory Records in Manchester has been hailed more times than Julius Caesar.

Yet arguably neither of these musical meccas have produced such a diverse range of bands and musicians as Sheffield.

Ever since Jimmy Crawford earned the distinction of becoming the city's first pop star when he made the Top Ten back in 1961, Sheffield has produced a conveyer belt of talent; from Joe Cocker to The Human League, to Pulp and more recently, the Arctic Monkeys.

In his book I'll Go To T'Foot Of Our Stage: The Story of Yorkshire Pop Music, author Craig Ferguson makes the point that Sheffield has always had a cosmopolitan outlook when it comes to music.

"If you go back to the 70s, bands like Cabaret Voltaire and The Human League embraced electronica in a way that only Kraftwerk were doing at the time. There's always been this DIY approach in Sheffield which you can see in the way the Arctic Monkeys came along and made their own rules."

Back in the 1960s you could be forgiven for thinking that London was the centre of the known musical universe. But even then Sheffield was ahead of the game. The Esquire Club, now The Leadmill, became a musical institution, playing host to The Kinks, John Lee Hooker and Jimi Hendrix. While The King Mojo club, founded by nightclub impresario Peter Stringfellow, became one of the country's most famous Mod clubs, where future legends like Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd and The Who enthralled audiences. And a decade later The Clash played their first gig supporting the Sex Pistols at the "Mucky Duck", now the Boardwalk, on Snig Hill.

Bu,t despite its rich musical history, Sheffield's role in Britain's rock and pop revolution rarely gets the recognition it deserves.

"Liverpool and Manchester have a similar musical heritage but their story gets reported and it doesn't here. But I think one of the reasons why Sheffield's is so rich is because it was left alone," says Richard Hawley.

"I love the romanticism of Sheffield, it's like the lost city. Even though we've had Dave Berry, Joe Cocker and Def Leppard, as a city

the majority of its artists and musicians were overlooked.

"I suppose Sheffield never had a label and the A and R men didn't really come here."

Hawley's own music reflects the people and the city where he was born.

His 2001 album Late Night Final is a tribute to the city's newspaper vendors, while Coles Corner is a nod to the Cole Brothers department store, a meeting place for generations of courting couples.

There appears to be an unusually deep connection between the city and many of its most famous musical sons.

In 2008 Tony Christie released Made In Sheffield, an album dedicated to and inspired by his hometown. It's a paean to the city where he grew up, featuring songs written by artists from the city.

"We are a proud community and the singers and bands that have hailed from Sheffield are some of the most successful in pop history, the city has always produced exciting, innovative music," says Christie.

Phil Oakey, co-founder of The Human League, has fond memories of his band's early days starting out in the city.

"People would congregate in cafs and pubs, and bands were forming all over the place.

"I think Sheffield was seen as a bit of a socialist city in those days, but people here have always cared about what's going on," he says.

"It was a very rebellious scene, it was amazingly different and there was an air of rebellion on the streets – people dressed in anything they felt like.

"I used to work in a university bookshop and students would go past on their way to lectures and then go and picket outside banks over apartheid."

Sheffield has a proud industrial heritage and Hawley believes there's a connection between this and the music it's produced.

"It's very eclectic and you can link it to the 'little mesters' who used to make the knives and forks here.

"They were fiercely independent people and I think that somehow rubbed off on to the music.

"There's a lot of bands that sound alike or try and copy the latest thing, but Sheffield always throws up the real mavericks that don't want to be part of a scene, and it's something to do with the mentality of the people here."

This sense of independence and experimentation still exists today with the likes of The Long Blondes and Reverend and the Makers the latest torchbearers in the city's evolving musical story.