there’s a wondrous place below us

Vocals: Michael Johnson
Piano: Jenny Conlee

Recorded in 2007/2008 In Jenny Conlee’s living room and at Reclinerland HQ in Portland, OR. Mixed and mastered by Michael Johnson and Scott Garred.

When lawless nightclub victualler Kate Meyrick opened her infamous “Forty-Three Club” in London during the early twenties, the authorities found her to be a perpetual thorn in their side. On 3rd March 1928, the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, dictated a letter to the head of London’s Metropolitan Police, Sir William Horwood.  The topic was “The Forty-Three Club”.  A friend in the House of Lords had ‘informed me that…it is a place of the most intense mischief and immorality [with] doped women and drunken men.  I want you to put this matter in the hands of your most experienced men and whatever the cost will be, find out the truth about this Club and if it is as bad as I am informed prosecute it with the utmost rigour of the law.’ Among the Forty-Three Club’s regulars was the talented but unheard-of composer Anette “Annie” Williamson, who was considered by her strict Anglican family to be a carouser and a rebel. Defying gender norms of the time and local authorities, Williamson penned the song “There’s a Wondrous Place Below Us” in an effort to get patrons into the club. The song was quite popular with the club’s regulars, and for nights on end Williamson belted out the song from the club’s dark stage, until a riot broke out in late 1929 when Meyrick, the club’s proprietor, was arrested during one of the most violent of the club’s raids. Williamson is reported to have played the song 10 times in one night, belting out the melody over the sounds of shouting, sirens, and police whistles. Sadly for the world of music, during the raid Williamson was struck in the head by a flying beer bottle and collapsed on her piano.