Dave Woodhall highlights the call to honour a Birmingham legend.
I’ve spoken before about the Broad StreetWalk of Stars. It’s never really been what it should be, a chance to show how much the city has given the world in industrial and cultural innovation. Instead, we’ve got a mixture of local celebrities, people who nobody outside connects with Birmingham and a few big names who invariably fled at the first opportunity never to return (Ozzy Osbourne, this means you).
Meanwhile, there’s one name who does deserve recognition for the work he’s done in, and for, the city, and now an online petition has been set up to bring the idea into the public eye.
Steve Gibbons is the longest-established and perhaps the best-loved member of the original Birmingham music scene after more than sixty years of performing. Fronting the Ugly’s, Balls and then the Idle Race he played with many of the great local names who went on to worldwide fame and by the mid-seventies he was having a certain amount of success himself with the Steve Gibbons Band. Touring with bands such as the Who and Lynyrd Skynyrd gave Steve a boost that reached a commercial peak with the hit single Tulane and live album Caught in the Act.
Steve was born in Harborne in 1941 and it seems hard to credit but he’ll be eighty next month. He’s still playing live (pandemics permitting) and has never left the city, devoting much of his time to raising money for charity and providing a helping hand for many local musicians. Nobody ever has a bad word to say about Steve Gibbons and many people owe him plenty.
There is nobody more deserving of a permanent record of his contribution to Birmingham’s musical heritage. If you agree, the petition can be signed here.