Mr Smiths - Manchester Nightclub

Mr Smiths was a Manchester 60's Night Club that had live soul and blues artists amongst the acts that appeared.

Ben E King, Edwin Starr, Clyde McPhatter, Georgie Fame, Champion Jack Dupree all appeared there.

Unlike the Manchester soul clubs Mr Smiths was licensed and a genuine nightclub with the usual assortment of dodgy looking characters in keeping with the club scene of the time. Part of the excitement was mingling with people with a less than savoury background much in the way that celebrities in the fifties and sixties often hung out in the same haunts as the Krays.

It was rumoured that the Kray Twins came up from London to see the club - (see below) although there has been some confusion about this - there was a Mr Smiths Club in Rushley Green, Catford which was supposed to have been bought by Manchester business men - possibly Dougie Flood and Bill Benny. In 1966 there took place 'The Battle Of Mr Smiths' which resulted in deaths and led to the revenge attack at The Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel.

A rather old fashioned service that was run in Mr Smiths was a photographer running round taking pictures of couples as a keepsake. These days, of course, this would probably be outlawed on the grounds of invasion of privacy, particularly if the meeting was illicit. Here is a genuine image from the club taken by the club photographer in 1971:



Our own experience of Mr Smiths included an unforgettable night with an appearance of Clyde McPhatter who started his gig with a wonderful  rendition of 'Such A Night'.