IT is hard to imagine, but 50 years ago showbiz insiders doubted that soul immortal Otis Redding would fill Glasgow’s Locarno Ballroom – now a casino – on Thursday, March 30, 1967. Barely two years previously, pitiful audience numbers had greeted the city’s first major American-import soul show, the Tamla Motown Revue at the Odeon cinema in Renfield Street, featuring such emergent legends as Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and the Supremes.
Elements of the management at the Locarno, in Sauchiehall Street, were additionally sceptical about the large fee demanded on behalf of Redding and his Stax-Volt labelmates (Booker T and the MGs, Sam and Dave, Arthur Conley, Eddie Floyd) for their European tour’s sole Scottish date.
What swung the promotional pendulum was the presence of the US Navy’s nuclear submarine base on the nearby Holy Loch. Assiduous leafletting of Dunoon’s bars resulted in a huge African-American attendance at the Locarno.
By the time Otis took to the stage, the Sauchiehall Street venue’s crowd was at least twice its official 1800 capacity. Veteran Glasgow nightclub entrepreneur Eddie Tobin was among them.
“There’s no doubt it was grossly over-crowded,” Tobin recalls, citing the show as the most exciting of his long gig-going career.
“It was electric from the word go – there was no gradual build-up, no support acts. Booker T doing Green Onions! Straight into Arthur Conley! Then Sam and Dave... the sheer power of the Mar-Keys’ horn players blasting out those riffs – incredible.”
Legend has it that Otis was fascinated by the Locarno’s circular balcony, not that much higher than his head. Is it true that at one point Otis looked up and waved at a girl who thought he was trying to shake her hand; she leaned forward, only being prevented from falling headfirst by pals who grabbed her waist . . . ?
“I don’t recollect that,” says Tobin. “But that night I was lucky enough to be in the balcony, too, along with the Glasgow soul band I managed then. And the thing was, due to the excitement and the number of folk packed into the place, all night long it felt like we were ALL on the verge of falling headfirst out of the balcony!”
David Belcher
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