Music in Crawley

4 Nov 2020 - 29 May 2021
Thursday, Friday, Saturday - 10.30 - 16.00
Admission free

Music has always been an important part of life in Crawley. In this exhibition we explore some of the music in Crawley that is within living memory.

This would not have been possible without the generosity of the people who have shared their memories and photographs and who have loaned us objects.

If you would like to share your memories of music in Crawley with us then please get in touch!

The exhibition is free but as an independent museum we’d really love it if you’re able to make a donation – thanks!

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Kev Neylon

4 years ago

With the museum only having re-opened, and the fact that the music exhibition was going to end the following week, I paid a visit to the museum on Friday 21st May. I am a member and had been a couple of times between lockdowns last year, so the main difference was the music exhibition. I knew The Cure were famously from Crawley, and that Chico was, but it was surprising to learn about some of the other acts.

What I don’t know is whether what has been going on since is a coincidence, or whether the exhibition has prompted me to be on the lookout for musical links to Crawley.

On leaving the museum that Friday afternoon I soon found myself in Oxfam, and browsing in their music selection I found the 7” single by Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs – “Sea Side Shuffle”; something I had been reading about less than an hour before. At 49p I couldn’t resist buying it and adding it to the wall of vinyl at home.

Then on Bank Holiday Monday, Radio 2 were doing all day Popmaster, and one of the questions was “Which one hit wonder had a 1972 hit with Sea Side Shuffle”. I’m not sure I’d have known the answer ten days before, and the contestant certainly didn’t. Other questions on the day asked about The Cure, Ms Dynamite, and Chico.

Speaking of The Cure, Mojo (the music magazine) had given away a cover CD called “I Wish I Were You” in April, which was a collection of covers of The Cure’s songs. Although I’d had the CD for a while I was only really listening to it at the end of May. The track that caught my attention was one called “I Don’t Know”, which I didn’t recognise as a Cure song, but it was a hip-hop track using “Lullaby” as a sample. I was quite taken by the song, and looked at who it was by to find it was Akala – Ms Dynamite’s younger brother – and another who I had read about in the exhibition. Again I hadn’t really heard about him until reading the stuff in the exhibition. I went away and listened to some more of his tracks and now have bought his first two albums.

It’s possible all of this would have happened anyway, but I was certainly more aware of it all because of my trip to the museum.

peter hyde

2 years ago

https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/i-ran-croydons-lost-beanos-24416218

Lovely article about Beanos at Croydon the largest secondhand music store -when doing my day release at East croydon I would go in my lunchbreak to Beanos a fantastic place ,did anyone else remember

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