For the most part of the 20th Century, The Rialto was the centre of everything in North Manchester and Salford – both for good and bad, light and dark…
John Cooper Clarke, who lived opposite The Rialto growing up, told the Salford Star about his relationship to the iconic picture house and more…
“I used to go there loads. We lived above a chemist’s called Freedman’s and that corner was a really happening place actually. Potter’s Club was there where all the North West snooker players used to go. It was open 24 hours and if you were a member you got a key so you could knock about there for as long as you wanted. It’s where John Virgo, Alex Higgins and John Spencer used to practice their shots.
“Also in that block was a place called Higher Broughton Assembly Rooms which had indoor fountains and a sprung dancefloor” he added “On a Friday night Jimmy Savile was the DJ and ugly Ray Terret was his apprentice who was like a mini-me of Jimmy Savile*. There were quite a few fires there which I could see out of my window but the place always rose from the ashes and would be a bit more splendid than before.”
In his brilliant autobiography, I Wanna Be Yours, John tells how “When my mum went shopping, she’d stick me in the Rialto and pick me up on the way back. That was my babysitter; the movies…”
For the full details on this site of John Cooper Clarke in Higher Broughton click here
Mike Leigh, in accepting the Freedom of Salford in 2019 cited The Rialto cinema as a major influence…“or as it was known the Riot Alto” he recalled “This was my alma mater. Here I savoured and cherished and was inspired by all manner of movies… This was when I would sit in the dark and think ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you could have a film where actors were like real people’.”
For the full details on this site of Mike Leigh in Higher Broughton click here
In 1963, Elkie worked as a singer at the Whisky A Go-Go Club at The Rialto, owned by Billy Charvin, beating fifty other girls in an audition, and there met Michael Parkinson, a news reader at the time, who got her on Granada TV…
“I was able to work at the Whisky pretty much every night” she wrote in her autobiography, Finding My Voice “It was a great gig because Dave Ellis, the piano player, and the other guys were fun to work with. He and his girlfriend, and Ronie Pearson the drummer, would come over to Mum and Dad’s on Sunday, and some evenings after work, and we would learn about fifteen new songs a week which, thinking back, was quite an achievement.”
The residency came to an end when the Whisky A Go-Go club burned down in mysterious circumstances. And Elkie went to London, to work at Charvin’s Soho Whisky A Go-Go Club, and stayed in awful digs recommended by Jimmy Savile.
For more details on Elkie Brooks see the article on this site – click here
Meanwhile, at the back of The Rialto was the Hilton Street rehearsal space, where Joy Division and A Certain Ratio shared a room…
“We rented a room in an old dilapidated building on Hilton Street that we used for a rehearsal space” recalls Martin Moscrop of ACR “Tony Wilson found it and we shared it with Joy Division for the first year or so, and then they moved to Cheetham Hill and The Swamp Children moved in. We shot the Shack Up video in there. The room was very basic, freezing cold and dirty. We didn’t record in there, we just rehearsed. We wanted something that was our own, where we could leave our gear set up. Hilton Street is not that far out of town, in Lower Broughton
“I think there may have been a band on the floor above us but can’t remember who they were” he adds “and there was an engineering firm on the ground floor who fixed electrical motors…We have a song called Rialto on our 1982 album, Sextet.”
Rialto is experimental and haunting in a jazzy funky sort of way, and seems as good a soundtrack as any for the iconic site…
Further up Bury New Road is Graveyard Studios on Church Lane where ACR recorded Shack Up et al…
“We made some good records in the Graveyard Studios: The Graveyard And The Ballroom album and Shack Up” he says “Shack Up cost £50 to record and still sounds good to this day, and I’m still in touch with Stewart Pickering who owned it.”
ACR are still touring and thriving…“Touring back then was really good with the other Factory acts” says Martin “We were young and going to Europe and the USA for the first time. We love touring even more now, we love playing and we just keep getting better and better live…”
Meanwhile, after moving out of Hilton Street to Cheetham Hill, Joy Division returned to the Rialto site in 1980, and into Pinky’s for rehearsals, demo recording and writing…including two new songs that have become classics, Ceremony and In A Lonely Place…
“Looking for more basic comforts, we’d ended up in Pinky’s near Broughton Baths (quite near North Salford Youth Club, actually, the second youth club I ever went to, with Barney; I got chased away from the first, South Salford)” writes Peter Hook in the second of his ace autobiographical trilogy Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division.
The band was supposed to shoot the video for Love Will Tear Us Apart in Pinky’s but it wasn’t big enough. Hooky addresses the bootleg tapes that are now featured on YouTube as being either from Pinky’s or Graveyard Studios. After the sudden death of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, the band met in the Pinky’s rehearsal space and New Order was born…
16th June 1980: The band convene at Pinky’s…
“So this is, if you like, the story of a long and drawn out grieving process that begins just a few days after his inquest when me, Barney and Steve, our manager Rob Gretton and faithful helpers Terry Mason and Twinny, gathered at our rehearsal room next to Pinky’s Disco in Salford” Hooky writes in the third of his ace autobiographical trilogy, Substance: Inside New Order “And while them three sat around making tea and smoking dope and feeling sorry for themselves, us three did the only thing we could. We started playing, writing songs again…
“…So even though Pinky’s was a freezing cold pit with a dangerous hole in the floor, we took solace in it and our work” he adds “Besides, we had Tony Wilson and Rob on our backs…We had Ceremony and Little Boy on tape already, and to work out the lyrics we had to listen to them over and over again, and hearing Ian’s voice like that it was almost like he was back with us in Pinky’s again. Weird…”
It was in a pub right near Pinky’s called the Dover Castle where the name was created…
“Rob and Steve decided on the Witch Doctors of Zimbabwe” Hooky recalls “Me and Bernard wanted New Order, which had begun life as The New Order of Kampuchean Rebels…For a while there was a tense stand-off, with Rob and Steve saying it was a shit name and me and Barney threatening to leave the band if it was called The Witch Doctors of Zimbabwe. We got our way…”
There is a huge archive of ACR, Joy Division and more at Graveyard Studios presented by Prestwich.org – click here for full details.
10CC, Jimmy White and Alex Higgins svengali, Harvey Lisberg on the Whisky A Go-Go and George Best (1961–1967)… “It served two purposes – to gamble and pick up au pair girls and give them a lift home. Main game there was baccarat. When you played, everyone else would watch the gamblers play. It was popular with ‘The Manchester Brotherhood’ – Arkie the scribe, Neville Weir, Cecil the barber and Russian Dave, who were all part of Manchester’s colourful characters and it was all pretty seedy. As was the snooker club. All these characters made Manchester. George Best used to go to Whisky A Go-Go because it was a late night club where you could drink and there was always action going on.”
On Potters Snooker Club in the 1980s Harvey adds: “I set up a company with Geoff Lomas who I think ran the club. He was Alex Higgins’ best friend. He played there, as did Jimmy White, Willie Thorne, John Virgo, Dave Taylor, Tony Knowles and many others. Together we set up Sportsworld Ltd to manage snooker players, starting with Jimmy White.”
For the full interview with Harvey Lisberg on this site – click here
*The Bury New Road project will be looking at the horrendous events that happened around the discos in The Rialto and more with reference to Jimmy Savile and Ray Teret in a future article…
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Regarding the reference to Freedman’s Chemist, my wife worked there for a short time in the 60s. I was born in Salford and had the privilege of going to Salford Grammar. Famous old boys were Mike Leigh who is mentioned above and the late Albert Finney.
Hi I’m not sure if this information helps but my grandad took over the riolto picture house in 1973 he changed it from a picture house to a bingo hall called the Rialto bingo straight away, he converted the cellar from the temperance billiard hall to the pool club which then was the first pool hall in the country, he owned this till 1979 Tony Kelly purchased it off my grandma after my grandad passed away in 1979
Brought on assembly rooms was purchased by saville and made into roller skating room then it changed to potters snooker club if you want anymore info my dad can help as he worked there during his dad owning the Rialto